Shop Talk: Tammy's Dilly Beans

Welcome back to Shop Talk here at The Featherweight Shop! We love our local chit chat with staff, gathering around the dinette table so-to-speak (because that is what we have!) and sharing with one another. In these segments, we exchange patterns, recipes, organizational ideas, history quips, crafty projects, and smiles about learning an old-fashioned way of doing things. Shop Talk is the fun tidbits of news!

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As the leaves are starting to change color during this gorgeous time of year, the vegetables are also ripe for harvest. The gardens have been tediously tended through the spring and summer, and the beautiful bounty is ready to be canned for the long winter ahead. This time of year always brings a tendril of excitement, for the holidays are just around the corner! So let's put our aprons on and begin our canning season with Tammy's Dilly Bean recipe below!

6 garlic cloves, sliced

6 teaspoons yellow mustard seeds

3 pounds haricots verts, trimmed to 4 inches

6 to 12 small fresh or dried chile peppers

6 dills heads (optional)

3 1/2 cups white wine vinegar

3 1/2 cups water

2 tablespoons pickling salt

Directions:

1. Into each of the 6 sterile pint mason jars, put 1 sliced garlic clove and 1 teaspoon mustard seeds. Pack the beans vertically into the jar, adding 1 or 2 chile peppers, and, if you like, a dill head to each jar.

Store the cooled jars in a cool, dry, dark place for a least 1 month before eating the beans.   Makes 6 pints. 

Tammy likes to keep a good supply of these on hand! It is a favorite at potlucks and holiday dinners so she makes double and triple batches. You can see in the photos that she cans her green beans in quart jars (instead of pints) and adds more cloves of garlic and slices of onion than the recipe calls for. She has even had a request to can several jars of the garlic cloves by themselves!