I make pickles - Bread & Butter and Kosher Dill, they make great gifts if your family doesn't raid the cupboards.

There are lots of recipes shared on the Harvest forum, or you can get the Ball Blue Book of canning (I saw it in my grocery store just this week) and get some ideas there. Lots of websites have good canning tips and recipes - just remember to follow safe canning techniques (the Ball book is all about those).

Here is a link that might be useful: Harvest Forum

I have loads of cucumbers and I make refrigerator pickles. Canning is too much work and this recipe doesnt require it. My husband worships these pickles and gives himself ulcers eating too many of them. I really love them too!
I use this recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com. I use only HALF of the sugar called for, and I also add about a tsp of celery seed and a tsp or TBSP of dill seed.

Homemade Refrigerator Pickles

1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups white sugar
6 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cup sliced onions
1 cup sliced green bell peppers

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil. Boil until the sugar has dissolved, about 10 minutes.
Place the cucumbers, onions and green bell peppers in a large bowl. Pour the vinegar mixture over the vegetables. Transfer to sterile containers and store in the refrigerator.

Good Luck!

You are right - there isn't much you can do with canning. All kinds of pickle recipes and sweet and dill relish is about it.

We always make several types of pickles but then we are both pickle lovers. And we make cucumber bread (it freezes well after baking), cucumber jelly, cucumber & orange marmalade, cucumber & onions salad (marinated in oil & vinegar - keeps for days in the fridge), and the rest we give away to neighbors. ;)

Dave

Make pickles not just dill and sweet pickles either, but Chinese pickles.

My husband peels them and eats them like a popcicles when it is hot out. If he did not eat as many as 24 plants can produce, I would sure be making pickles!

After the fresh eating, giving away, pickles, freezer pickles, relish and even tried freezing them, I did cucumber marmalade. It didn't set but it's an interesting change.

Then I took about 30 more out to the compost pile. Now I have a new stack starting. Cucumber soup and cucumber ketchup are on the list to try.

Well, we mostly eat them fresh. I will go out in the morning and gather some, take them inside to wash, slice, and place in the refrigerator. If there is a container of sliced ready-to-eat anything right in the fridge, in my house, it has the best chance of being eaten. Usually gone by the end of that day.

I have made Polish-style cucumber salad, too, with fresh dill, cream, and red onions. But I am the only pickle-eater in this family, so I have never made any just for myself. I may try the above refrigerator recipe, though, because it looks fairly simple to accomplish.

I'm as green as a cuke with envy! All my cukes got the wilt this year. I started with nine plants, then I was down to three, and just yanked those three today. I was planning on a summer of cucumber salads. Have to console myself with the bean harvest.
-O

Geez, I didn't even see that you had already tried looking at pickle recipes. Sorry! :)

A friend of mine told me about an excellent, simple cuke salad that she makes:

sliced cucumbers
thinly sliced red onion
red wine vinegar
salt & pepper.

I don't know the proportions (probably "whatever you like") and I've yet to try it (no cukes yet in my Maine garden, sigh... and hopefully they'll do well this year; last year I had to buy them to make my pickles) but it sounds SO good.

I like how the Japanese do it:

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