Pickle making mania

I started some pepper plants from seed. The package said that they were poblano pepper seeds. It became obvious pretty quickly that they were NOT poblano pepper plants. I think that they are pepperoncini…I think…I hope…. Since we don’t use many of those, (but I guess we will have to figure out how to use more), I picked all the peppers off of the plants and pulled them up last night.

I looked up how to pickle them in the Ball Blue Book for canning and preserving (an absolute must if you want to preserve food.) It was really easy. You make a brine out of water, vinegar, and whole garlic cloves and let that cook.

I decided that I wanted to pickle them whole, so I packed the jars as tightly as I could with peppers.

I removed the garlic cloves from the brine and poured it over the peppers, screwed on the lids, and put them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes (for pints).

I also sliced jalapenos from the garden and pickled those using the same brine and following the same instructions. I ended up with 8 jars of pickled peppers.

While I was at it, I picked the rest of my pickling cucumbers and made half a batch of dill pickles using Mrs. Wages Dill Pickle mix.

Now, I just need to let them sit and put them away once they have cooled completely and have been labeled. It seems like a lot of work, but all of this took about 2 hours from start to finish.