Pepper Jelly Adventures

I've been determined to make Pepper Jelly since last December when a friend gave me a homemade jar. It was delicious. How difficult can it be? I asked myself. I am woman, hear me cook...between me, Google and Pinterest I can figure this out.

The cute-'nuff jars. Mr. B. is a good man.

After intensive internet research (on Pinterest), I discovered that most recipes for pepper jelly include the same basic ingredients but with varying amounts. I figure I can ballpark this. I found a recipe with a darling photo and cute jars so I bravely forged ahead. I bought the ingredients: 2 Red sweet peppers and 7 Red California (or Fresno) peppers, lotsa sugar and apple cider vinegar a bit of butter and salt and Bob's yer uncle.

Halfway through cutting the peppers into one inch pieces for the food processor I realized I needed more canning jars. Crap. 

Mr. B. (my husband) was at the discount market with Grampy right at that moment. I know that asking him to buy something as foreign to him as canning jars was tantamount to asking him to buy Tampax.

About 7 California Peppers and couple Sweet red peppers

Removing the seeds of hell-fire

So with pepper juice on my hands I called him. He hesitated but said OK and brought home the goods. The jars are not as cute as the Pinterest jars but anytime a man goes out of his way for you it's a blessing. He could have brought home a box of monkey brains and I would have praised him.

You have to put all the jars and lids in the dishwasher and punch the button that says "sanitize". This takes 12 hours for the dishwasher to complete but it must be done. Grandma did it, I must do it also.

My tiny food processor. It was red. I bought it.

The recipe said to take out the seeds and membranes of the hot peppers if you don't want to suffer the flames of hell-fire in your mouth so I did. Ain't nobody got time to suffer hell-fire.

While waiting for eternity for the jars to sterilize, I proceeded to pulverize the peppers in my tiny red food processor.

Then I had a Bright Idea. This is usually when I get in trouble—when I ad-lib. I thought adding raspberries would be delightful. They're red, right? Everyone love's raspberries and I had a 12 oz bag in the freezer.

So into the pot they went. Along with the whacked peppers.

All of the recipes I read said to add copious amounts of sugar; ranging from 5 cups to 8 cups. I split the difference and added 6 cups. Don't judge me. It's the new math.

And 1 1/2 to 2 cups vinegar. I added 1 1/2.

A tablespoon of butter and a smidge of salt.

Done.

But the jars were still in the dishwasher. So I didn't turn the fire on under the burner yet...I went outside to water my garden.

I wanted to put the finished jars into a water bath so they'd keep on the shelf. I have never done this before but how hard can it be? Grandma did it and frankly, she wasn't that bright. (please don't haunt me grandma)

While waiting for the dadburned dishwasher to finish, I consulted my BFF - Google, and evidently there is a LOT of equipment needed to can jam. What?! Really?

Photo of the junk you need to can jelly. Criminy Christmas.

My patriotic calculations

Um....no. I'll figure that out later cause the jars were ready and I needed to make the jam. 

The recipe said to add a package of liquid pectin. All I had was powdered pectin. What's the difference? The key word here is PECTIN. So once again I consulted Google for the ration of liquid to powdered. I wrote down some equations, drew a quick American Flag, circled the answer and Bob's still yer uncle.

I cooked it all in my big cast iron pot exactly as the directions said to. Then I ladled the jelly into my waiting jars. Easy peasy.

Being the queen of substitution, I gathered my homemade hot water bath tools. I boiled water in my big, enamelware soup pot and dropped the jars into the hot water using my Grabber. If you don't have a Grabber get one. They are great for retrieving things that are too high or for teasing the cat. I use it all the time. Now it's even a canning tool. Take that Google!

Here are my beauties all complete!

The Grabber. My favorite canning tool.

I had so much fun making this jelly and it is delicious on crackers with cream cheese but not very hot. I do like me some heat in my foods. So I decided next day to make Jalapeno pepper jelly and add more jalapenos than it called for. Same ingredients otherwise except green bell peppers instead of red and jalapeno peppers instead of California peppers....and no raspberries. That jelly turned out great as well.

The Lessons I learned: 

1. Improvisation is not always a smart choice but sometimes you have no choice. To wit, my Grabber. And it was fine. I lucked out on the Pectin calculations. It was perfect despite my math skills (or lack thereof). And adding the raspberries proved to be a nice touch.

2. The Big Lesson...and this is your horrible warning: The recipe said to use gloves to cut the peppers. Well I am in the bad habit of laughing in the face of good instruction and I didn't have any gloves, so I cut the jalapenos then washed my hands thinking that would do the trick. Let me interject here that you'll need to Sanitize your hands in the dishwasher for 12 hours after cutting jalapenos cause that pepper juice gets under your fingernails and doesn't want to wash away. Yes, you guessed it, I touched my eyes. Both eyes. ARRRGGGHHHHH! It was horrible. It was Traumatic. I thought I would die. I suffered the Flames of Hell Fire. 

Use Gloves.

Pepper juice eye. OMG.