A Peck of Peppers

  

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

My translation:

Me, myself and I picked a peck of sweet peppers

A peck of sweet peppers I did pick

If I did indeed pick a peck of sweet peppers

Where’s the peck of sweet pepper me, myself and I did pick?

Ready for the answer…

 

In a jar of jelly!

Scrappy Sue over at My Home Wellingtontown gave me the idea. She made a comment the other day about making a relish with all my green peppers. That was just enough of a push to get me thinking past just chopping them up on a salad!

So I dusted off the old mason jars, got busy doing an internet search for exactly what to do with my plethora of green peppers, and then went to the story for supplies.

I did not exactly find any relish recipes (if y’all have any good relish recipes I would love to give them a try) but I did come across several recipes for pepper jelly.

It seemed simple enough so I gave it a go.

 

Chop and chop…

and chop and chop

 

And yes I cold have used my food process or but then I would have had to clean it.

Sterilize the jars and lids.

Add 6, yes SIX cups of sugar, 1 cup chopped peppers, 1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar and stir, stir stir...

Remove for heat and add pectin, I have never made jelly before so I am unfamiliar with this product. The recipe called for 4 ounces but the package failed to tell me exactly how many ounces were in each pouch. But one recipe I found said to use two pouched so I felt safe that I was on the right track.

The recipe also called for four drops of green food coloring.

Well when was the last time you saw the old fashioned little bottles of food coloring in the grocery store.

Y’all remember these.

Does your grocery store still carry these???

I bought a tube of green cake decorating gel, which did nothing but evaporate completely when it got stirred in the the jelly. After the entire tube was squeezed in the jelly it was still not the right color.

Thankfully I had a jar of wilton cake decorating food color and was able to get the desired tint of green for the jelly.

Pour into to jars.

This was a bit messy and the recipe said it would yield 6 pint jars but I only yielded 4,

A pint is a pint is a pint…right????

Into a water bath for five minutes…

 

and Taaaaaaa Daaaaaaaaaaaa!

Pepper Jelly

Y’all I feel like Caroline Ingalls

Shalom

Robin