Thank you Carol for your reply! I will definitely contact her. I certainly am not the only one on the continent who wants to sell home preserved food! Amazingly I got a quick and helpful reply from my State's food safety officer in one day! The gist of it is -- that savory jellies and fruit/savory chutneys are low acid (pH >4.6) for the majority of ingredients with some acidification in the process to lower the pH but they are NOT exempt from filing a Scheduled Process as acidified food like fruit jellies are. Those are exempt (since they have a beginning and finished high acid equilibrium of I really try my best to jump though the hoops, comply with the laws, rules, and guidelines to be legally on the up and up, though finding information on what is needed has been a royal pain. I do so wish that Ball and NCHFP and So Easy to Preserve sites and books would outline what is needed if you want to SELL your home-canned products to the public, and even though each State has their own laws, the FDA is the ruler max. Why is this stuff so secret and hard to find? I've written an outline of what is required for my fellow local market vendors so that whoever wants to sell home-canned foods in my State will have all the info I had to scrabble to find. Maybe I'll write a white paper about it for the US and make enough money to pay for more food safety testing for my chutney's and pickles next! Nancy

The brine has 4 cups of vinegar and 1-1/2 cups water - no salt at all. However, originally this recipe called for lime and alum and you very helpfully advised substituting pickle crisp or calcium chloride, instead. Perhaps, with the removal of the lime, I could have foregone the additional days of soaking in the brine as well. We have well water that is very low-iron and soft. Additionally, I use an R/O filter for all cooking/canning. Here is the modified recipe - the original was posted on the Texas Gardening Forum. (they taste great!): ROSY PICKLES 2 gal. watermelon rinds, or cukes with seeds removed. (Overgrown cukes work best) peeled and cut in long strips or shapes with tiny cookie cutter 1 cup vinegar, 5% acidity 1 oz. red food color BRINE: 3 cups vinegar 3 (3-oz. pkgs) red hot cinnamon candies 5 lbs sugar 12 cinnamon sticks Pickle Crisp or Calcium Chloride 1st Day: Simmer 3 hours in 1 cup vinegar, red food coloring and enough water to cover. Drain and throw away the brine. Place watermelon in clean, food-grade bucket. While simmering, dissolve red hot cinnamon candies in 3 cups cold water. Bring to boil a brine of sugar, 3 cups vinegar, cinnamon sticks, and the dissolved red hot candies. Pour this brine over the cucumbers, and let stand for 24 hours. 2nd Day: Drain and reserve liquid. Reheat and pour over the cucumbers again. 3rd Day: Repeat as for 2nd day. 4th Day: Heat cucumbers in brine. Place Pickle Crisp (3/4 tsp/pint) or Calcium Chloride (1 tsp/pint) in bottom of each jar. Pack into hot jars, and seal while hot. Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath. (Do not over-process or pickles will become mushy.) Remove to towel-covered counter to cool. It would be nice to be able to change this to a one-day canning process. What do you think?

The recipe called for soaking the peppers in a salt solution and then rinsing and draining thoroughly. There's no salt in the finishing brine the peppers are canned in. Ideally, with sufficient rinsing, the salt should not be that noticeable in the final product. Is it possible not all the salt soaking solution got rinsed off? Carol

I do chicken quite often in the crockpot and it usually turns out good. But dark meat is definately recommended, although I do chicken pieces, including breasts, successfully. Thighs are the most highly recommended. But chicken is not a "leave it in all day while you're at work" kind of meat to make in a crockpot, it cooks too quickly. Leave it in all afternoon on a weekend and have for dinner--yes. You need to brown it first for best results. And yes, bone in for the crockpot. 5-6 hours on low TOPS. Six is really too many. There have been some posts about doing boneless chicken breasts and other boneless cuts in the crockpot, but I don't know much about that, since I cannot afford those cuts. Really not necessary to do those kinds of cuts in a crockpot, seems to me, since the chief advantage they have is their easy, quick prep. time. You don't want too much liquid in your chicken or it just stews, (unless it is actually chicken STEW you are making, lol). I do a sweet and sour moroccan chicken in the crockpot and it turns out yummy. I drain the fat from the remaining juices/sauce in the crockpot and thicken it with a little cornstarch for a smooth thick flavorful sauce.