[kitty56]

This is what pickled watermelon is Judijo. I am going to post the recipe if anyone is interested. I got this recipe from my husbands mother, that was the first time I ever ate these kind and I am soo hooked on them.
There are two ways you can can watermelon, my folks like to do it this way, you just can them like you do pickles. They are ok but not crazy about them.
Now this is how I can mine and I am crazy for them. Now I use sugar on them becasue I do not know how splenda works on these and the cost of watermelon I am not going to chance it and I am staying with sugar. But I use so little sugar and the sugar stays mostly in the water of the jar. I eat them and I have no trouble with them. But if I eat other things with sugar in them I dump from that becasue the sugar is so concentrated in other foods. Here is the recipe. I can them in quarts.

Pickles watermelon

9 cups of Spring water (I use my purified water, if you use hard water the melons in the jar get mushy)
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup salt
Bring this juice to a boil.

In bottom of the quart jar I put dill and then I add one big toe of garlic in each jar. Then I put in cut up chunks of watermelon into the quart jar, when the jar is half ways full of watermelon I add 1/4 of a banana pepper or if you do not have any hot banana peppers, you can use the dehydrated red hot peppers. Just use a little bit of it in each jar. The hot banana peppers in the watermelon is to give a little bit of pep to the watermelon. Then fill the rest of the jar with watermelons and then take a little slice of a green bell pepper and slide it to the side of the watermelon so that you can see it from the outside of the jar. Then you pour the juice over the watermelon till about an inch from the top of the jar. Wipe of the top of the jars and seal. Then put the jars into a canner and can till you see the green bell pepper turn from the green color to a pale green color. Once it boils in the canner it only takes about 10 to 15 minutes for the green bell pepper to turn color. Then you take out the jars and let the lids seal. But do not eat them right away, you have to wait about two weeks to a month and the flavor is so delicious. If you eat it right away the ingredients has not soaked into the watermelon yet, you have to give it time to be ready to eat. If you have a jar or two that do not seal wait about 3 to 4 days before you eat it and it will taste better than instead of eating it right away. Once the jars are cooled off you should store then in a cellar or cold place.

My son and his fiance made pickled watermelon yesterday and they had two jars that did not seal and I told them to wait a few days before they eat them, my son loves them. I also have another hint, if you have a watermelon that is not really sweet or on the green side of tasting, you can pickle that watermelon with this recipe and it is really delicious.
I canned 15 quarts of pickled watermelon and everyone of them sealed for me and they are in my basement now and today I canned 6 quarts of beets, I did not pickle the beets this time but next time I am going to pickle about 12 pints. This time I canned them in their own juice. So this winter I can drain the juice off the beets and put them into a cassorole and add butter and splenda brown sugar to them and bake them, that is going to be so delicious.

[beckamarie]

I cant wait to try this

[reastland]

Diana,
When I first saw this, I thought---yuck. But after reading how to make it--I want to give it a try. It would make a great gift at Christmas for my friends who love spicey things!

Smiles,
Becky

[judijo]

Very interesting, Diana...thanks for sharing.

I bow to anyone with the patience for canning fresh foods. I am exhausted just reading the instructions!

[kbfrmaz]

OK call me crazy, but I just cannot imagine pickled watermelon!! I would love to try it, but wish I could just buy it. Anyone wanna send me a jar? LOL