Easy homemade dill pickles

    My girls and I loooooove dill pickles, but...but...we're very picky. Our favorites are the New York Deli style pickles that we can only get at Costco. It's no big deal, it's a huge jar and only costs like $5, the problem is they don't always have them. Our second and ONLY other choice are the claussen brand pickles.
    I've been wanting to start canning and pickling things for a while, but again, well, I'm a huge procrastinator- truth be told. But when I saw these lovely little pickling cucumbers at my local $0.99 store I was like "Heck, the heck yeah!!!!".
   So I bought 2 bags, that sadly got shoved to the back of my fridge and ended up being thrown away <- see procrastination. It was so stupid too, because I had bought a set of mason jars at *gasp* Wal-Mart (I'll explain my disgust for this company later, or perhaps not at all. If you don't have anything nice to say...right?) Anyway, this lovely little set of jars came with a pickle seasoning packet all I had to do was cut up the cucumbers and boil some water. How lazy am I? don't ask!
   Well,last week I was at the $0.99 store and again they had my little pickling cucumbers. This time I only bought 1 bag, you know? Just in case.
   
Ingredients:
pickling cucumbers
seasoning packet
water
5% acidity vinegar
mason jars and lids

Directions:
Cut 1/4 inch from each end of the cucumbers, and then cut them into spears. We also decided to cut some into chips for when we have hamburgers and sandwiches. Boil the contents of packet, water and vinegar. Place cucumbers into jars. Fill jars with hot liquid. I let my pickles chill on the counter top for a few hours then refrigerated. The chip style pickles were ready the next day. We didn't try the spears for a few days.

Getting everything ready.

The brine.

Just finished!

The seasoning packet that came with my jars.

I forgot to get a picture of them after they were ready to eat, Ill have to do that!



    They were sooooooo good. The girls and I have each eaten a few here and there, but really just kind of tasting them. Yesterday, we had friends over and we made sandwiches for lunch and finished an entire jar!!!! Big thumbs up all the way around. Next time I will make them completely from scratch. It's good to know I can just make my own pickles now.
*There were directions on the packet for how to prepare the pickles if you wanted to enjoy them within a few days and also if you wanted to can them and store for later. We obviously opted for the quick method ;)