Monday

When life hands you jalapenos...

Last weekend my denial over summer's end came to a halt.  It was going to freeze and therefore my garden's growing season was officially over.  The kids and I planted several things, but the truth is I do NOT have a green thumb.  The tomatoes looked frightening and the onions were pathetic.  However, the cilantro was epic and I still have a grinder with the coriander seeds sitting on my spice shelf that tastes and smells wonderful.  But my biggest successes were basil and jalepenos.


We had enough basil for the neighborhood all summer!  About once a week, I'd harvest a bunch and puree it in the food processor with garlic and olive oil.  I took this pesto 'starter' and froze it in a mini muffin pan.  The end result was several bags of these little guys.

(I think I need to take a class on how to photograph food.  It always looks so strange!)

These are so good made into pesto, bruschetta, or tossed into a soup or baked chicken!


My other successful veggie, the jalapenos, became my first adventure in canning.  I made jalapeno jelly!!!
The recipe called for 6 CUPS of sugar! Crazy!


 Here are about half of the little jewels.  Some weren't even fully grown, but it was time to harvest anyway!  I was originally going use the green peppers only (for aesthetics) until I bit into one of the tiny red guys - HOT!  Hubby and I like spice, so I decided to add them.

 
Peeled, seeded and cored!


Here are the jars taking their water bath.  Notice the sticky pan behind, seriously, JELLY is sticky stuff!


There was one mishap - the bottom of one of the canning jars broke out and the contents gradually oozed everywhere.  I was unfazed and pretty pleased that the remaining jars all sealed correctly!

Sorry for this blurry pic.  I think I had jalapeno juice in my eyes - next time I'll wear gloves!


 The end result was great.  The next day we tried the jelly over cream cheese with crackers.  It's a little sweet for my taste (um, yeah, 6 cups of sugar?) but I plan on changing the recipe up a little.  I'm not going to lie, it was A LOT of work for 3 jars of jelly!!  Do you have a WINNING jalapeno jelly recipe I could try?

I linked up here:
Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special

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