Saturday, August 13, 2011

My baby's hot, like jalapenos!

OK, not really, but I like the song.  lol.

(standard disclaimer about date on pictures - you're probably sick of hearing it by now)

My jalapenos are LOVING the hot weather we've been having and I found myself with quite a few of them.  We eat them on the grill, in soups and stews, cut up in various recipes and on sandwiches and stuff, but I still had a bunch on the counter.



I've already canned sliced jalapenos this year so I decided to try making some jalapeno jelly.  I've had jalapeno jelly a few times in my life.  In fact, I have a small jar in the fridge right now, but it's not spicy at all, which is a disappointment to me.  So, let's see if we can do better, shall we?

I used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book.  So I washed, seeded and stemmed the jalapenos and blended them with some of the vinegar the they went into the pot with the rest of the vinegar and sugar.  I got most of the seeds out, personally, I don't care if there are some in it, so I didn't take the time to make sure every single one was out.   I like some heat, so I took all of the seeds, veins and cores and tied them up in a clean (bought for canning purposes only, years ago) cloth diaper and put it in there to hopefully add some heat.  You can't see it in the picture, but I had a wooden clothes pin holding it on to the side of the pot.  :)


After it boiled for ten minutes I added the two packages of pectin.  It called for liquid, I only had powdered, so that's what I used.  I used a whisk to make sure it was mixed up well.  After another minute, I skimmed off the foam and into the jars it went.

Not the best picture of it in the jar, but you get the idea.


Foam skimmed off:



I processed them in a water bath for ten minutes and I ended up with six of these jars of jalapeno jelly.  Pretty, huh?  I like how you can see the bits of pepper in there.  Now, let's hope they have a little heat to go along with the sweetness.


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