As many of you know, besides doing restaurant reviews I also cook (as seen by the recipes I’ve posted here) as well as grow some of my own vegetables. The hardest part about growing your own veggies is figuring out what to do with them, especially when they all decide to get ripe at the same time such as my sport pepper plant…
I’ve never pickled or canned before today, but after a bunch of reading and researching I felt like I was ready to try my hand at preserving my bountiful harvest. I’ve discovered the hardest part to canning and especially pickling it locating the correct ingredients for the pickle brine.
My brine called for pickling or canning salt but after visiting Albertsons, Stater Brothers, Target, and Walmart I came up empty. Fortunately according to Morton’s Salt, I can safely replace picking salt with their coarse kosher salt, unfortunately one of the side effects is possible discoloration of the final product.
For my pickling brine I went basic and followed a tried and true method from Colorado State University Extension for Pickled Peppers, with the addition of Pickle Crisp, and ingredient that is supposed to help keep pickles from going mushy. The recipe is as follows. This recipe was for 1/2 Pint Jars. I had more brine than I needed.
6 Cups of Vinegar
2 Cups of Water
1 TBL +1 TEA of Pickling Salt
1 TBL Sugar
1 Clove Garlic for each jar
Peppers
1/16 TEA Pickle Crisp per jar
Prepare peppers by trimming most of the stem, and pricking the ends of them to help the brine enter the pickle. Boil the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar for 5 minutes. Drop in 1 garlic clove per jar and then fill to 1/4 inch of top of jar with peppers. Add 1/16 TEA of Pickle Crisp to top of jar. Pour pickle brine in jar to 1/4 of top. Seal jars appropriately to canning directions. For 1/2 pint jars 10 minutes of boiling is typical. Promptly remove from canning pot and let cool. Alone pickled peppers to sit for around 5 weeks before opening.
Looking forward to seeing how these taste once they are ready!
