Following advice on here, last year I bought Ellie Topp's Small Batch preserving, which is a great book. Earlier this summer, I made her cucumber pickles with lemon:

2lb small cucumbers
1tbsp pickling salt
1 1/3 cups white vinegar
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp peppercorns
1/2 tsp whole allspice
3 slices fresh lemon
3 cloves garlic
3 bay leaves

Salt cucumbers 3 hours and drain. Bring vinegar, sugar and spices to boil. Place 1 slice lemon, 1 clove garlic and 1 bay leaf in each jar. Add cucumbers to boiling liquid and return to boil. Pack in jars and process in BWB 10 mins for pints.

Having just opened a jar and tasted, the flavour was wonderful, but the texture was too soft for our liking. I haven't boiling water bathed cucs before, I make unprocessed refrigerator pickles from them, so they stay crisp.

I have, however, made zucchini bread and butters, which we really like:
(http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_06/bread_butter_zucchini.html)

I was wondering if I could substitute zucchini in Ellie's recipe? I think probably not, as cooking time not long enough?

So, my second question, therefore, is, could I use the bread and butter zucchini recipe, substituting some of the vinegar with lemon juice in the proportions above, using Ellie's spices, and adding lemon slice, bay leaf and garlic? I've done a search and think the lemon juice and dry spices are fine, but I'm worried about adding the garlic?

I know it's bad to alter recipes, but we really like these except for the texture. I suppose I could make them unprocessed and store in refrigerator?

Many thanks, Amanda.

In addition, this is a straight undiluted vinegar recipe with additional lemon juice which is even more acidic than vinegar.

And yes, you can also sub zucchini in the NCHFP B&B pickles recipe since it too is a straight vinegar recipe.

Dave

Best wishes,

Amanda