It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

After the quick jar-filling exercise with the dill pickles, I got what I thought was an inspired notion to keep the cucumbers more or less together after slicing crosswise, as for bread and butter pickles.  That, I thought, would help fill the jars faster because I could just dump in the poker chip-like stacks of cucumbers that were all aligned with each other, then fill in the gaps with shards of sliced onion.

It didn't really work out as planned.  These cucumbers were a little larger in diameter, but as I was packing the jars I belatedly recalled that I had to break up single-cucumber sets and fit the long  spears into a lot of small spaces while jar-packing with the dills.  It may have helped some, but wasn't the quick and easy fix I'd anticipated.  Still, packing went a lot faster for this second batch of the season.

It also illustrates at least one reason why smaller cucumbers are favored for pickling.  I've canned some huge ones. But it is undeniably easier with smaller cucumbers.

In other news, the cost of cucumbers, onion, sugar, and spices for this batch was less than $15 for 8 quarts (actually, 7 quarts and 2 pints).  A quick check of Amazon finds bread and butter pickles going for about $2 per pint or more--many varieties are made with high fructose corn syrup, though sugared (and even sugar-free) types are available.  As long as the time value doesn't exceed half the minimum wage, homemade ones are a bargain...