~Pickled Jalapeño Peppers~

We LOVE our hot stuff in this house!  So much that we always have taco beef made in the freezer, salsa and tacos in the cupboard and pickled jalapeños on hand.  Problem is, I’m cheap and pickled jalapenos are pricy so I taught myself a couple of years ago how to make them at home.  We just ran out of them a couple of months ago from the ones I made in the summer of 2008.  So since we were on a roll on Sunday night I went to the store again (if you are counting that is 3 trips to the store in one evening, LOL!) and I picked up jalapeños to make it. They cost a whopping $5.69.

So how to make Pickled Jalapeños?  It is actually ridiculously easy!  Start by cutting up the jalapeños however your like them.  We like ours with seed and in rings so I got to work cutting them up!  I was smart enough this time to pick up some gloves to wear while cutting them.

Just to prove that the gorgeous hand model is me:

 

Then you pack them into jars.  Make an acid mixture for them of 4 cups of vinegar, 4 cups of water and 2 tsp of salt.  Simmer but do not boil the mixture and ladle it over the packed peppers.  Process in a hot water bath for 20 minutes.  We processed for this long to cook the peppers a bit more then the last time.  We wanted them a little softer…you could do less time, the recipe suggests 15 minutes.

Enlist strong man again to pull the hot jars out…just saying, much easier to have a strong man around sometimes….

Let them sit and pop their little heads off sealing nice and tight!

So here are the spoils of our evenings’ work:

We ended up with 4 large jars and one small of Pure raspberry jam, 4 large jars and one small of Triple Berry Jam and 3 large jars, 7 very small jars of Jalapeño peppers.  I didn’t want to make huge quarts of jalapeños so I used small jars which will pretty much be good for one meal.  I usually make them in 250mL jars because its the perfect size but I was all out of that size.

Anyhow, we won’t have a need to buy jam for the next couple of years and we should be good for jalapeños too!  I’m thinking I want to try to can some peaches some night this week.  I’ve never done it before but peaches are so cheap right now and it would be tasty to have summer fresh peaches in our lunches year round!  I’m sure I’ll be calling you for help Mom!