Sep 5th 2008Hot peppers

I like hot peppers of various types.  Over time, it seems that my taste buds have become less sensitive.  I remember when jalapenos used to send me over the edge.  Not so much any more.  As a bit of a pepper junkie, I decided that we need tons of peppers to satisfy my cravings.  In the excitement of late winter/early spring seed-starting, we planted hot peppers in sufficient number to feed my entire family for a year.  We planted jalapenos, hungarian wax, cayennes and habaneros.  I have been drying pepper rings, I have canned peppers by themselves, I have thrown peppers in salsa, pickles, spaghetti sauce, and on everything I eat fresh.  Still, we have millions and millions of peppers.  I had to resort to something extreme and strange to use up some jalapenos.  I made jalapeno jelly last night.  I am not exactly sure how you eat this though I have heard it is good on anything with creamcheese. The recipe is pretty simple so it’s worth a try:

Jalapeno Jelly
3/4 pound stemmed & de-seeded jalapenos�
2 cups vinegar
6 cups sugar
2 pouches of liquid pectin
I de-seeded the peppers for the first batch of jelly but got tired of that so I ground seends and all for the second batch. Anyhow, puree the jalapenos until they are nearly unrecognizable. Boil them with sugar and vinegar for 10 minutes. Make sure you stir constantly and have a big enough pan as this mixture swells a lot and really smokes-and-smells-up-your-house-and-your-wife-has-to-scurry-around-to-deactivate-the-smoke-alarms-since-the-kids-are-sleeping when (I mean if) you boil it over (so I’ve heard). After the 10 minute boil, remove from heat, add pectin and boil again for 1 minute. Powdered pectin does not work very well so do yourself a favor and just use liquid pectin. Ladle into half-pint jars and water bath can for 10 minutes.  You can add green or red food coloring, by the way.  I prefer not to add coloring but you can color it if you’d like.