Watermelon Pickles

Quick! While watermelons are in abundance! MAKE THESE PICKLES! I would never, ever steer you wrong. As I've said elsewhere, these things are DIVINE. And as always, if I can do this, ANYONE can do this. Here's the recipe.

WATERMELON PICKLES

3 lbs. watermelon rind, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
5c Sugar
2c Apple Cider Vinegar
1c Water
2T Whole Cloves
1 ½ T Whole Allspice
2T Stick Cinnamon (I wasn't sure how to translate that, but I used 6 sticks)
1 Lemon sliced

Let cubes soak overnight in large pot in salted water to cover. Drain. Cover with fresh cold water. Bring to boil and cook over low heat until tender. Drain. Combine rest of the ingredients and stir over medium heat until tender. Boil 5 minutes. Add watermelon-rind cubes; simmer until transparent-About 15 minutes. Remove spices and pack pickles into jars and process in a water-bath canner for 15 minutes.

And here are my notes, gathered from asking around and examining other recipes:

Peel the smooth, shiny outer skin from the rind, using a potato/carrot peeler. You don't have to take off any more than the outermost skin.

For the overnight soaking, use 1/4 cup pickling salt for each quart of water needed to completely cover rind chunks. For the rind from one large watermelon (the weight of which I have NO idea), this came out to about 2 quarts of water and 1/2 cup of pickling salt.

I rinsed the cubes twice, then covered them in fresh water and brought them to a slow boil. I cooked them until they were tender but not yet translucent.

I went ahead and pre-cooked the pickling mixture just enough to get all the sugar dissolved and get the ingredients to start melding together well.

After combining everything, I'm pretty sure I let it cook for a bit longer than 15 minutes. I let the melond-rind chunks get fairly translucent, but not soft or soggy.

I would add that YES, you DO need a jar funnel. Don't be like me and think you don't. You do. You also need one of those jar-lifters, while you're at it. Now get pickling!