Pickles and Trains

This weekend the kids came up so Reid could go to Family Day at the Union Pacific Railroad with Uncle Steve. For a little guy who LOVES trains, this is about as close to heaven as he's gonna get and not be in the presence of Jesus. And there were free hot dogs and ice cream. Perfect recipe for a perfect day and a colossal melt down. He did very well, though. Only melted down once when we left the model train display after sitting there for over half an hour watching them go round and round and.....

After the visit with all things train, we hurried home to get ready for a shower. This one was for the brother of the friend I had the shower for in July. He and his wife live in NYC and were only going to be down for a few days so we decided to do a coed shower That way they could get together with friends while we could bring goodies for the baby. Because they live in NY, and we didn't want them to have to pay to get the gifts home, she registered for a lot at online sources. We encouraged guests to purchase the gifts online, have them shipped to their house and bring a picture of their gift to the shower.

The parents to be

The mom-to-be isn't from the great state of Texas and since we were having men at the shower, we went with a Texas BBQ theme to let Jess enjoy the taste of Texas and the men have meat. We started with salsa, black eyed pea dip with Fritos, jalapeno poppers and spinach artichoke dip. For the meal we had ribs, Sunbeam bread, pulled pork (not really Texan but delicious), watermelon, pinto beans, iced tea and pies; pecan, apple, sweet potato and chocolate cream. Can't have pie without ice cream and it can't be a Texas theme without Blue Bell. Instead of a dessert bar we had a pickle bar. Lots. Of. Pickles.

I got most of my pickle recipes via Pinterest so I'll link them back there, but know that I NEVER follow recipes exactly. I either don't have, or do not have enough of the particular ingredient, I don't like the particular ingredient or I just forget to put it in. Sometimes this can lead to complete recipe failure but there are occasional pleasant surprises. That means that although I loved how mine turned out, the linked recipes might not be the exact same.

I didn't want to waterbath anything, which meant I needed to start early enough to give them time to develop flavor but not go bad. My plan was for a dozen or so different pickles. I started 2 weeks before with sauerkraut, Vietnamese Diakon and Carrots, pickled mushrooms and pickled weenies. The only bust was the sauerkraut. It smelled wonderful but after about 10 days had a healthy head of hair growing on it that just screamed "botulism" to me. The diakon and carrots were yummy. I didn't put the peppers in the mushrooms but they turned out great, too. I don't like peppers anyway.

The reason the weenies seem to be different colors is because they are. I used 2 different brands.

I couldn't find a pickled weenie recipe on Pinterest (imagine that) but I found one online and tweaked it to my liking.

Arlenie's Weenies

3 pkgs. of weenies

6 large cloves of garlic

some dill sprigs, a couple for each jar

a little mustard seed (I don't like a lot)

1/8th of a tsp of red pepper flakes (I'm guessing, do as much as you want)

2 pints of rice wine vinegar or cider vinegar

Sterilize your quart jars and lids. I'm sure there are enough preservatives in cheap weenies to counteract any potential problems, but it's better safe than sorry. Put half your garlic and dill sprigs in each jar along with the pepper and mustard seed. While bringing your vinegar to a boil, cut your weenies in half or quarters and stuff into jars. Pour hot vinegar into jars (if there's not enough, top it off with more vinegar). They should be stored in the fridge and let them set for about a week, if you can, to develop the flavors. I ate a whole pint jar myself.

The next day, I made the pickled green beans, okra, cauliflower with carrots, turnips and red onions. I made the green beans, okra and cauliflower using the okra recipe but without the sugar for any of them. For the onions I slice a couple of red onions really thin, packed them in sterilized jars and covered them in a brine of seasoned rice wine vinegar and a little salt and sugar. Again, leave all of these in the fridge after they cool.

My last batch of pickles were the cucumbers. I made refrigerator dill and bread and butter. They turned out better than I had hoped. I finished off a jar of the b&b myself, too. To round out to an even dozen, my mom brought her pickled peppers and pickled jalapenos over.

We had a great time, only marred by a serious grill fire before the guests arrived that required a quick trip to the store for more ribs. My sweet husband was out of town so I enlisted a friend of my son's to help with the grilling. He was the grill master of his fraternity, according to my son. Apparently the new NBA XBox360 game that they were playing proved to be a little too mesmerizing. I've never seen bones cremated to dust before.

Sunday I did some maternity shots of Meg. I won't be seeing her again for two weeks and I was afraid we might not get any if we waited, being that she's less than 4 weeks away. Doesn't she look great? What do you think, boy or girl?