Food Friday: Pumpkin Pickles

Ingredients

• 1 pumpkin (the larger the pumpkin the more pickles you will have!)
• cider vinegar
• sugar (2 ½ cups / 625ml for every 1 cup / 250ml of water)
• water
• whole cloves
• cinnamon sticks
• glass preserving jars with snap-top lids and rings (wide-mouth jars are the best but small-mouth will work too)

Directions

1. Peel pumpkin and cut into bite-sized chunks. Put into a large bucket and cover with cider vinegar. Soak for at least six hours.
2. Drain pumpkin shunks. (You can either discard the cider vinegar or save it for next year or for other usus.)
3. Combine 2½ cups (625ml) sugar for every 1 cup (250ml) of water to make the quantity of syrup you need. You’ll need about 1 to 1½ (250 – 375ml) syrup for every 1 litre jar of preserves (I think). (To know how many jars of preserves you can make, you can try filling a jar with the pumpkin chunks to see how many will fit in one jar, then do the math for the whole pumpkin.) Add about 1 tsp /5ml whole cloves and 1 cinnamon stick for every 4 cups / 1 litre syrup.
4. Bring syrup to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Boil for a couple of minutes. Add pumpkin chunks and stir until coated with syrup. (Add as many as will fit in the pot – you may have to repeat several times to use up all your pumpkin!)
5. While pumpkin cubes are cooking, sterilize your clean glass jars. I do this by boiling water in the kettle and pouring the boiling water into the glass jars and over the snap-top lids and rings.
6. Cook until pumpkin chunks are translucent and glossy. Do not overcook!!! They should still be crisp, not mushy.
7. Place your HOT sterilized jars on the counter. Ladle HOT pumpkin chunks with syrup into the jars until almost full. Place snap-top lid and rings on jar. Tighten rings slightly.
   As the pickles cool, you should hear the snap-top lids pop, indicating you have a good seal. If any jars do not seal, you can either reheat the jars and pumpkin, or put them in the fridge and eat that jar first.
8. Store jars of pumpkin pickles in a cool place. These do not have to sit before you can eat them, so enjoy a few right away!