Basil Banana Pepper Jelly

I have basil growing in my herb bed... and I received an abundance of banana peppers, so when I happened across this recipe for Basil Banana Pepper Jelly I had to try it... it's so pretty in the jars... and tasty!

Almost any variety of pepper will work in this jelly, but using both hot and mild peppers and a combination of colors creates the best flavor and appearance. Look for color... but don't be afraid to use peppers with lots of flavor and heat. Sugar and vinegar tame the heat, which is less noticeable when the jelly is used as a marinade or glaze.

Here's what I did...

After preparing my jars and lids... (I heated my jars in a flat pan of boiling water set across two stove eyes, and simmered my lids in hot water, keeping everything hot until I was ready for them)... I thinly sliced a half cup of seeded mild banana peppers

1/4 cup thinly sliced seeded green chili peppers (red chilis would be tasty too, I liked the green/yellow color combination)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion

3 or 4 large fresh basil leaves, cut into ribbons

1/4 tsp. dried basil

In a large, deep, stainless steel saucepan, I combined the banana peppers, chili peppers, onion, fresh and dried basil with 3/4 cup white vinegar

I stirred in 3 cups granulated sugar...

Over high heat, stirring constantly, I brought the mixture to a full rolling boil (that cannot be stirred down).

I stirred in 3 ounces of liquid pectin (I used pectin I had made from apple peelings a few weeks previously, liquid pectin can be found in the grocery store in the canning section)

I boiled the mixture hard, stirring constantly, for one minute. I removed from the heat and quickly skimmed off the foam.

I quickly began filling my hot half pint canning jars with the jelly, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

I wiped the jar rims, tightened the lids on to fingertip tightness, and place the jars into the canner, ensuring they were completely covered with water. I brought it to a boil and processed in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. After processing, I removed the jars using my jar lifter and set them on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar.

*This jelly is a particle suspension jelly... to enhance the suspension of these solids, it may be necessary to gently manipulate the jar after processing. This procedure can be used only with jellies prepared in 4 or 8 ounce jars that have been processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner. To enhance particle suspension, cool the processed jars upright for 15-30 minutes or just until the lids pop down but the jelly is not fully set. As soon as the lids are concave, carefully and gently twist and/or tilt - do not shake and do not invert - individual jars to distribute solids throughout the jelly. The sealed jar must not be inverted as this might prevent the formation of a vacuum seal. Repeat as needed during the cooling and setting time until solids are nicely suspended in the jelly. 

For a printable copy of this recipe... click here.

Hot Pepper Vinegar

I was born and raised in Western North Carolina. I've eaten greens of every kind... mustard, turnip, spinach, kale... we generally only had collards on New Year's Day along with black-eyed peas for wealth during the coming year, hog jowl for health... Mama sometimes substituted ham for hog jowl and we had corn bread and usually sweet potatoes to round out our New Year's meal.

Then a few years ago I moved to the Midlands of South Carolina (new job and a wonderful new relationship)... where COLLARDS are practically a religion! Collards (around here, mostly pronounced without the "R" Collahds!) are eaten everywhere, and often... they are served alongside Shrimp 'n' Grits even in high end restaurants, as well as at Lizard's Thicket, the local country cooking restaurant. One of the gourmet food trucks in town even has a burger, served on hoecakes (cornbread) instead of a bun, topped with collards and black-eyed pea salsa... it's quite tasty. Collards were recently voted South Carolina's State Vegetable... they love their collards in South Carolina...

...and I've jumped on the bandwagon... I now have collards growing in my winter garden and cannot wait for them to grow... I have a plan to make Collard Kraut as soon as I can harvest my collard bounty... and I can't wait for fresh collards on New Year's Day... with the hot pepper vinegar that is served alongside them... In my NC mountain world, we always splashed a bit of vinegar on any greens (they were cooked with a little bacon grease)... but here in SC hot pepper vinegar sits proudly alongside ketchup, salt, and pepper in the condiment area of each and every restaurant table and in the refrigerator of a true South Carolina home.

I recently made my own version of hot pepper vinegar... here's what I did...

I sterilized my half pint canning jars by placing them in a flat pan of boiling water set on two stove eyes. I simmered my lids in hot water and kept everything hot until I was ready for them.

I washed a variety of hot peppers (green chiles, red chiles, hot banana peppers, jalapenos, etc.) and dropped them into the half pint jars... I tried to get pretty much the same amounts of each pepper I had on hand into each jar (any hot peppers will work, I had several varieties so went with that)... I filled the jars very loosely until they were about half filled with peppers.

Then I simply poured white vinegar into the jars, leaving about a 1/4 inch headspace (apple cider vinegar would be great too, I love the flavor it adds... in this instance, I wanted the clearness of white vinegar)

I tightened the lids on to fingertip tightness, then placed the jars in my canner, ensuring they were completely covered with water and brought it to a boil. I processed the jars in the boiling water bath for about 15 minutes, just to make sure everything was heated through.

After processing, I removed the jars using my jar lifter and set them on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar.

I will let these jars sit for several weeks before opening to let the vinegar and peppers blend and marry well... Then... watch out collards!!!

Habanero Gold

When I saw the recipe for this fiery golden, translucent jelly with colorful suspended fruit and vegetables... I had to make it... it was so pretty! It goes great with cheese, on a cracker with cream cheese, or melted onto grilled or sauteed dishes to add sparkling flavor highlights.

Here's what I did...

I started out finely slicing 1/3 cup dried apricots

I poured 3/4 cup white vinegar over the apricots...

...Covered it and let it stand at room temperature for at least four hours, or overnight...

Next morning...

I poured the vinegar/apricot mixture into a deep stainless steel saucepan and added

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/4 cup finely chopped seeded red bell pepper

1/4 cup finely chopped seeded habanero pepper (wear rubber gloves, habaneros are HOT!!! According to the Scoville scale of heat units that measure the hotness of peppers, jalapenos have a Scoville number of around 5,000... to me jalapenos are plenty hot... habaneros are at 100,000-350,000 on the Scoville scale... HOT!!!!)

3 cups granulated sugar

Over high heat, stirring constantly, I brought the mixture to a full rolling boil (one that cannot be stirred down). I stirred in...

1 pouch (3 oz.) liquid pectin (I used 3 ounces of my homemade pectin I had made previously from apple peelings)

I boiled the mixture hard, stirring constantly, for one minute. I removed it from the heat and quickly skimmed off any foam.

I poured the hot jelly into hot, sterilized half pint canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. I wiped the rim, and tightened the hot lids on to fingertip tightness.

I placed the jars in the canner, ensuring they were completely covered with water. I brought it to a boil and processed for 10 minutes. After processing, I removed the jars, placing them on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool, and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar.

*This jelly is a particle suspension jelly... to enhance the suspension of these solids, it may be necessary to gently manipulate the jar after processing. This procedure can be used only with jellies prepared in 4 or 8 ounce jars that have been processed for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner. To enhance particle suspension, cool the processed jars upright for 15-30 minutes or just until the lids pop down but the jelly is not fully set. As soon as the lids are concave, carefully and gently twist and/or tilt - do not shake and do not invert - individual jars to distribute solids throughout the jelly. The sealed jar must not be inverted as this might prevent the formation of a vacuum seal. Repeat as needed during the cooling and setting time until solids are nicely suspended in the jelly. 


For a printable copy of this recipe, click here... Printable Recipe

Easy Jalapeno Jam

The variety of hot peppers I had to work with... habaneros, hot bananas, red and
green chiles, poblanos, Anaheims, cayenne, and of course jalapenos!

A lady from a local farm contacted me via Facebook (Yay for Facebook!) to tell me she had an abundance of peppers, both hot and sweet, was I interested? Well, yeah! I stopped by on my way home from work to pick up the peppers and to meet the owners of Crooked Cedar Farm, Edwina and Selvin Harrel. Super folks... took me on a tour of the farm and introduced me to their "ladies"... the hens. We chatted awhile and then I headed home to make my plans for all those colorful peppers.

I found a recipe called Easy Jalapeno Jelly... it's more like a jam so I renamed my version of it... I prefer making jams instead of jellies because you use the whole fruit in jam... just using the juice of a fruit and discarding the rest seems wasteful to me, so I was eager to get started on my Jalapeno Jam. Here's what I did...

First, I washed the jalapeno peppers... 12 ounces of peppers.

Then, wearing rubber gloves... and this is important, hot peppers can burn your hands... I removed the stems and seeds.

In my blender (you could use a food processor) I pureed the peppers with a cup of apple cider vinegar until the mixture was smooth.

Once the puree was smooth, I poured the mixture into a large deep stainless steel saucepan and added another cup of vinegar and
6 cups of granulated sugar

I brought the mixture to a boil over high heat and boiled, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes.

You'll notice the change in saucepan from the previous photo... yep!
we had a minor boil over and after a quick clean up and the realization
that my original choice in saucepans was not deep enough,
the process continued.

After boiling for the 10 minutes, stir in 2 pouches (3 ounces each) of liquid pectin (I used my homemade liquid pectin I had made from apple peelings a few weeks previously... I'm VERY proud of that fact!)

After adding the pectin, boil hard (full, rolling boil) for one minute.

Remove from heat, (at this point you have the option to stir in a few drops of green food coloring... I chose not to... I think Mother Nature's own natural coloring is perfect without any additions), then quickly skim off any foam.

I quickly ladled the hot jam into hot jars (I had sterilized my half pint canning jars by boiling them in hot water and had simmered my lids and kept them hot until I was ready for them).

I wiped the jar rims with a damp cloth...

... and tightened the lids on to fingertip tightness.

I placed the filled jars in the canner, ensuring they were completely covered with water. I brought the water to a boil and processed for 10 minutes...

After processing, I removed the jars and set them on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar!

Is this jam pretty or what? Look at those flecks of pepper! LOVE it!

This jam is fabulous on cream cheese and crackers!

For a printable copy of this recipe, click here... Printable Recipe

Making and Canning Sauerkraut

When I was a little girl, my Granny Smith always had a row of crocks in her cellar filled with pickles, pickled beans, pickled corn, and sauerkraut. These brine and vegetable filled vessels intrigued and fascinated me... in went a little salt, some clear, clean water, and the vegetable of choice... and out came a tasty treat! Granny always broke her corn cobs into 2-3 inch pieces for pickling... just the perfect size for tiny hands to enjoy.

Granny pickled because it was a great way preserve the crops of cabbage, corn, beans, cucumbers. Fermenting foods (that's what pickling in brine is!) was a way of life... and we've removed ourselves from it very much in this modern day of preservatives and over-processing, much to the detriment of our digestive systems... Fermented food:

1. Improves digestion... Fermenting our foods before we eat them is like partially digesting them before we consume them. According to Joanne Slavin, a professor in the Department of Food Science at the University of Minnesota, "... sometimes people who cannot tolerate milk can eat yogurt. That's because the lactose (which is usually the part people can't tolerate) in milk is broken down as the milk is fermented and turns into yogurt."
2. Restore the proper balance of bacteria in the gut... Do you suffer from lactose intolerance? Gluten intolerance? Constipation? Yeast infections? Allergies? Asthma? All these conditions have been linked to a lack of good bacteria in the gut.
3. Raw, fermented foods are rich in enzymes... According to the Food Renegade blog, "Your body needs enzymes to properly digest, absorb, and make full use of your food. As you age, your body's supply of enzymes decreases. This has caused many scientists to hypothesize that if you could guard against enzyme depletion, you could live a longer, healthier life."
4. Fermenting food actually increases the vitamin content.
5. Eating fermented food helps us to absorb the nutrients we're consuming.
6. Fermenting food helps to preserve it for longer periods of time... milk goes bad quicker than yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles and salsa will keep for months.
7. Fermenting food is inexpensive.
8. Fermenting food increases the flavor... There's a reason humans enjoy drinking wine and eating stinky cheese. There's a reason we like sauerkraut on our hot dogs and salsa on our tortilla chips. It tastes good!

OK... science lesson over...
I made sauerkraut and here's what I did...

The recipe I have called for 25 pounds of cabbage... I only had 8 pounds...

And it called for 1 cup of canning and pickling salt... I used 1/4 cup...

After peeling the outer leaves from my cabbage, removing the stem end, and weighing it, I used the slicer attachment on my KitchenAid to shred the cabbage (a food processor with slicing attachment can be used, you can use a mandoline, or you CAN use the old fashioned method of knife and cutting board, slicing thinly... you want your cabbage about 1/16 inch thick)...

Once I had chopped all my cabbage...

I put it all in a food grade plastic bucket (I used a 5 gallon bucket even though I only had about a gallon of cabbage)... a stone crock would have been nice, but I don't own one... it's on my list!

I mixed the 1/4 cup of canning and pickling salt thoroughly into the shredded cabbage. If I had followed the full 25 pounds of cabbage recipe, I would have worked in 5 pound batches at a time, layering cabbage, then salt and working it in as I went along, waiting about 15 minutes between layers.

After I had mixed the salt into the cabbage well, I let it sit for about 15 minutes and checked to make sure   there was enough juice flowing to cover the cabbage. If the water was enough to cover the cabbage I would have moved on to the next step, however, my cabbage wasn't producing enough of its own juices so I mixed up a batch of brine using 4-1/2 teaspoons of pickling salt to 4 cups of water, heating it on medium high to allow the salt to dissolve, then letting it cool to room temperature. I added the brine to the cabbage in the bucket.

The cabbage needs to remain submerged under an inch or two of water, so I placed a glass pie plate on top of the mixture and weighted it down with two quart jars filled with water.

I covered the bucket loosely with a dish towel and put the bucket lid over top, loosely. I placed the bucket of sauerkraut in a consistently cool place...
And then you wait...

... and let it ferment...

Fermentation takes place best at a cool temperature between 70 and 75 degrees F. At this temperature fermentation should take about 3 weeks. At a slightly lower temperature, between 60 and 65 degrees, fermentation may take 5 or 6 weeks to complete. If the storage is below 60 degrees fermentation may not take place. At temperatures higher than 75 degrees pickles may become soft (not sure what happens to cabbage, but didn't want to take any chances, so I kept my mixture in an area that stays between 70 and 75 degrees)

I checked the mixture every day and removed any scum that had formed. During fermentation, gas bubbles will form. When the bubbling ceases, fermentation is complete.

I didn't have a lot of scum to remove, thankfully,
but one time there was a big ol' glob, easily skimmed off
(I know, EWWWW, but it's a fact of life in fermenting that
we must face *grin*

Once fermentation is complete (took my sauerkraut about three weeks), and scum is removed, it's time to can it up (if you don't have a fabulous root cellar or stone crocks to store it in, that is... I must can mine!)

I decided to hot pack my sauerkraut, so I poured it from the bucket into a large stockpot to heat it up, bringing it to a simmer over medium-high heat, but not to a boil.

I prepared my pint canning jars by placing them in a flat pan of boiling water set over two stove eyes. I prepared my lids by simmering them in hot water until I was ready for them. Once my sauerkraut was heated through and my jars and lids were hot, I packed the hot sauerkraut and brine into the hot jars, leaving a half inch of headspace.

I removed any air bubbles and adjusted headspace, if necessary by adding more brine. I wiped the jar rims...

...and tightened the lids and rings on to fingertip tightness...

I placed the jars into my canner, ensuring they were completely covered with water. I brought the water to a boil and processed the pint jars in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes (quarts would be processed for 15 minutes) I removed the canner lid after processing and removed the jars using my jar lifter...

... then set my jars on a folded dish towel on the counter to cool and to listen for the PING of each successfully sealed jar.

Now for a hot dog with sauerkraut and spicy mustard!