Spicy Dill Beans Recipe

If you're interested in trying out your hand at canning here's the Recipe/Instructions I have for canning green/yellow beans into Spicy Dill Beans!

Materials:
- Large pot for brine
- Large pot for boiling jar lids
- Canning Jars (the number you need depends on what size you want to use)
- Jars, lids and sealers (you can use any size jar you'd like)
- Tongs to remove jar lids from pot
- Funnel and ladle or glass measuring cup
- Oven mits or tea towels to remove hot jars from oven and screw on jar lids
- 6 Qts of beans
- 3 or 4 small ferns of dill
- Enough pealed cloves of garlic for each jar to have one or two
- Enough chilli peppers for each jar to have one
- 1/2 cup pickling salt
- 4 cups white vinegar
- 12 cups water

To prepare the Beans:
- Wash any dirt etc. off beans and trim off ends
- Blanche beans for 2-3 minutes in hot water
- Dump blanched beans into some ice water to instantly cool them, and set aside

To make brine:
- combine 1/2 cup pickling salt, 4 cups of white vinegar and 12 cups of water
- boil brine and keep at a rolling boil


To sterilize jars and lids:
- place jars in oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes
- boil lids (not sealers) in large pot, and remove as needed

 

Now you're ready to CAN!

Warning: After the jars are filled you need to let them sit for a day or so before moving them to a final storage place, so plan ahead! Make sure you have a cleared off area where they can sit undisturbed to cool.

Step 1. Shove in a sprig or two of dill and a clove of garlic.
Step 2: Fill jar with beans and add a chili pepper.
Step 3: Pour boiling brine into jar with measuring cup to fill up the rest of it.
Step 4: Stick another sprig of dill ontop, place sealer over top of jar and add lid from boiling water.
Step 5: Set aside to cool and don't move jar until cooled. (it will cause pre-mature popping of lid)

 

 

Now you've got tasty homemade beans to enjoy throughout the year!! Delicious. 

Fall is coming--and that means canning season is too!

Last year hubby and I tried our hand at canning. We tried making our own salsa and we made some spicy dill beans. I come from a long line of canners and I always loved having homemade pickles, jams and other preserves to eat throughout the year that we had made ourselves. I had never attempted to do any canning on my own though until last year, and it was definitely an adventure! It's a lot of work--but it's totally worth it!

 

This year I think we're going to make some more spicy dill beans (which we and guests have devoured all year long!), and we would like to try dill pickles as well as some elderberry jam this time.

Our salsa which looked delicious while being prepared and cooking, ended up tasting pretty terrible. It's really sweet and not spicy at all, so I think we'll pass on that one this time around. Maybe we'll attempt it again next year after consulting with the canning elders on what we might have done wrong!

 

 



The final products however looked pretty awesome, and let's face it, we consumed all of the spicy dill beans AGES ago. My sister tries to steal a jar whenever she can! It's sad really. I even gave her one for Christmas. The chili pepper in the dill beans not only adds lots of flavour, it provides a nice colour punch too!

I've never made Jam before, but I'm excited to give it a try! Elderberries are a particular favourite of mine, and appear to be an Ontario thing since many friends from other places have no idea what they are... what they are is DELICOUS! We're hoping to go berry picking this weekend, and in the meantime we need to re-evaluate our canning supplies to figure out what we need to pick up before then.

We need to get this skill down so that we can pass on the wisdom of canning to the boy-o, because lets face it, not much beats eating your own jam made from fresh fruit in the middle of winter!