Our green and yellow beans have been ripening fast. The weather is also turning cold so the beans are toughening. They are starting to plump up their seeds. The Blue Lakes are still pretty meaty but our Yellow Romanos are getting tough. Sigh… The Yellow wax bush beans are going fast also.

So I needed some way to save a few of these. I froze a couple of quarts. I am not a big fan of pickled food but I decided to pickle a bunch of the green beans. I had a case of half pint jars so I picked a bunch of small green and yellow beans and set out to make some dilly beans.

I liked the sound of these Pickled Yellow Wax Beans and the Dilly Beans from Food in Jars. If you haven’t made pickled food before the instructions on The Blueberry Files were excellent – and also an excellent refresher on how to can.

I decided to use the recipe from Food in Jars. I had enough beans for about 5 jars so I cut the brine in half. I decided to use red pepper flakes and a couple of peppercorns instead of the cayenne pepper.

First I started the water boiling in the canner. This takes about 30-45 minutes to get to a rolling boil. This gave me time to prepare the ingredients. I measured out the size of the beans that would fit in the jar leaving a half-inch room and cut the beans. I prepared the garlic and spices. I sterilized the jars once the water was boiling and prepared the brine.

I measured the spices into the jars and then packed in the beans into four jars using the small extra pieces to tightly pack the beans. I used the extra pieces to make a fifth jar of cut beans. I poured the brine to 1/2 inch from the top, and then screwed on the tops. Set them into a water bath and boil for 5 minutes.

They looked great. I could hear them pop and seal as they cooled. I hope they taste good.

Spices for the dilly beans

Water bath

Summer goodness – ready for this winter