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