Dilly Beans!

Tags

canning, dilly beans, garden, green beans, harvest, pickling, preserving

Apparently, you can’t make Dilly Beans! without the exclamation mark.  Which is okay with me – I love the exclamation mark.  However, there is no need to get carried away with it.  One exclamation mark is fine; ten is excessive.  But I digress.

Dilly Beans! are delicious and a great way to preserve green beans without the threat of botulism or the arduous task of blanching and freezing (so much steam, so many ice cubes, argh).

The biggest lesson I learned from making Dilly Beans! this summer is to use the freshest, yummiest beans.  You cannot use old, tough beans- they simply won’t taste good.  Give the old beans to the chickens instead, but don’t pickle them.  Pickling will not improve the taste; it’ll only accentuate their already deteriorated state.  I think this lesson applies to all canning, actually.  Only use ripe, fresh veggies and fruits.  Canning will preserve the flavour, but do nothing to improve it.

Google “Dilly Beans!” to find a recipe; there are hundreds of them out there.  I, of course, used the one out of my canning bible, Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry.