A Peck of Pickled Peppers

Mike and I have a love of all things spicy. One of our favorites would have to be pickled jalapeños. These can be obtained at the store, but we love them homemade. Anyone want to can with us today?
We'll start with basic ingredients: an assortment of fresh vegetables, white & cider vinegar, and salt.
After a bad experience a year ago, I never touch a pepper with my bare hands. Cut the tops off, de-seed if you like, and prep the peppers for canning. While this is going, set to boil: 1 quart vinegar (I mix equal parts white and cider, but you can use all white.) 1 quart water (or more), and half a cup of salt. If you like the taste of pickling mix, throw a bit of that into the vinegar, or you can put some into the jars. Oh- you should be sanitizing jars right now. How many? depends on how much stuff you cut up, how tight you can pack the jars, and how big your jars are. I always sanitize more than I need, just in case...


Here's my army of jars. They're not super full because we love the carrots & onions as much as we do the peppers. Now I'll roughly chop onion, carrot, radish, cabbage, garlic... and anything else I can think off.
I put the salt directly into the jars, poured the boiling water/vinegar mixture over until there was 1/2" of head room, wiped the rims, and sealed them off. Aren't they just beautiful? Then I put them in a 10 minute water bath while I made flour tortillas-
Ah, homemade tortillas, warm pickled peppers, and hot refried beans (of which I failed to get a photo, of course!)
Life can't get any better than this!
They're not quite as pretty once they water bath, but that's partially because of the cider vinegar. Still, they're preserved, and they're yummy, and I did it all by myself, so I know what's in that jar!

Labels: canning, cooking, jalapenos, preserving