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Preserving the taste of summer

Both Clark Echols and Vernice Turner love to preserve fresh vegetables.

In fact, neither can get enough of it.

Both can and preserve fresh garden vegetables for the same reasons — for family consumption or for profit.

Darrtown resident Clark Echols, who has a wife, Margie, six children and a full-time

job, primarily cans for his

family's use.

When he has the time, however, and extra jars of fresh veggies from his backyard garden, he takes them to the Uptown Farmers' Market in Oxford and sells them for $4 for a pint jar.

Echols has been gardening for 50 years, since he was a child growing up in Pennsylvania.

The last 32 of those years he's been canning and processing fresh garden veggies, especially cucumbers.

"I love to cold pack cucumbers and make dill pickles from them," said Echols, while standing in his garden. "My Uncle Phil Finkelday taught me how to make this dill pickle brine. ... I couldn't find that flavor anywhere else."

Although Echols primarily preserves veggies for his family, Vernice Turner primarily preserves veggies for profit to sell at The Original Talawanda Farmer's Market at the Talawanda High School parking lot.

From 7:30 a.m. to noon on just about any

Saturday from May to November, you'll find this 86-year-old at her stand. There, for $4 a pint jar, she sells her favorite canned and cold-packed veggies, such as 8-bean salad, dilly green tomatoes, dilly green beans and dilly green okra, among many other kinds.

"I can't stand to see food go to waste, and I love to can," said Turner, while sitting at the dining room table in her Oxford home. "I can and preserve vegetables for my family, too, and sometimes they ask me why I don't stop. But I really do love it, and I enjoy seeing customers every week at the market ... I love to please them and hear someone say, 'Oh, my husband loves these.' "

Cold pack dill pickles

Brine:

3 cups white vinegar

1 cup coarse salt (Morton's kosher)

1/2 cup sugar

11 cups water (bottled or spring water, not from the tap)

Pickles:

15-18 pounds pickling cucumbers, not peeled

Coarsely chopped fresh garlic (2 pinches per jar)

2 pieces of sprigs of fresh dill for each jar

To make brine: In a large crock or bowl, add vinegar, salt, sugar, and water. Mix well, making sure the salt and vinegar are dissolved. Set aside.

Cut ends off of cucumbers. Cut each cucumber into 4 to 6 spears, long enough to fit into a wide-mouth pint jar.

Add 1 piece of garlic and 1 piece of dill to each jar. Put cucumbers in jar, packing them tightly. Add the rest of the garlic and dill on the top of the cucumbers. Fill each jar to the brim with the brine; then tighten the lid by hand. Put in a cool place, but not the refrigerator. Room temperature is best. Never put the jars in the sun or in a hot room. About 24 hours later, put the jars in the refrigerator and keep them cold until they are gone.

Yield: 16 pints.

—Clark Echols, of Darrtown

Dilly green beans

2 pounds green beans, trimmed

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

4 cloves garlic

4 heads fresh dill

21/2 cups water

21/2 cups white vinegar

1/4 cup salt

Pack beans, lengthwise, into hot Ball jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. To each pint, add 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 clove garlic, and 1 head of dill. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to boiling. Pour, boiling hot, over beans, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts for 10 minutes in boiling-water bath.

Yield: about 4 pints.

— Vernice Turner, of Oxford

8-bean salad

1 can* butter beans

1 can light red kidney beans

1 chick peas or garbanzo beans

1 can black beans

1 can lima beans

1 can Italian green beans

1 can wax beans

1 can green beans

*Cans should be the 15- or 16-oz size.

Wash and rinse each can of beans in a bowl of water. Dump each can into a colander and drain. Put beans under faucet and rinse again, while in colander. Drain again, until all of the water is off, or about 2 hours.

While beans are draining, make the liquid.

To make liquid:

4 cups sugar

3 cups water

2 cups white vinegar

2 medium to large onions, diced

1 level teaspoon white pepper, or less

On the stove top, in a deep pan, add sugar, water, and vinegar; simmer for 3 minutes or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from stove. After the liquid has cooled, add onions and white pepper. Stir. Put liquid, onions and pepper mixture in a large crock or bowl. Dump beans in and let them sit to season for several hours. Put in jars and tighten lids. (Note: Turner said this recipe does not need a hot water bath.) Refrigerate. Yield: 8 - 9 pints.

— Vernice Turner, of Oxford