Pickled Red Onions

Canning food takes a lot of time, but it’s somehow a very satisfying thing to do. That’s something I never thought I’d write, having spent plenty of weekend afternoons during my childhood helping with processing and canning the always bountiful tomato harvest from my parents’ garden. It seemed like a tedious chore at the time, but I’ve grown to appreciate the value of such things. Over the summer I canned some tomatoes that I got from the organic CSA we belong to, and also made some pickled red onions. We gave a few jars of that away, and regretted it later. Pickled red onions are a perfect salad topping. We recently made another batch, starting with ten cups of onions and ending up with 6 pint jars of pickled onions. It doesn’t seem like much, but a little goes a long way. All you need are red onions, red wine vinegar, and a couple cloves of garlic.

I use the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving for recipes and canning instructions, and a 10-quart pressure cooker (although pressure processing isn’t necessary for this kind of food so I just use it like a regular large pot for canning.)