My goal this and every year is to use everything that comes out of the garden. I had a pile of yellow wax peppers that were starting to turn orange, with one that was red, so I decided it was time to make some hot banana peppers. The yellow wax peppers make it a bit hotter than your standard store bought hot banana peppers, and I added in a few cayennes to add some more red (colour is important!) and up the heat a touch more. I find that banana peppers are great as a gift because they are not crazy hot, but they give the person getting the gift the lingering sense that things can be much much better than relying on store bought canned goods. I also love them on hot dogs and burgers.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/recipe/sweet-pickled-banana-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
The next step was chopping them up, which was mind numbingly boring but it had to be done.
The end product was 6 X 250 mL containers and 6 X 125 mL containers. The smaller ones are a great addition to gift bags for friends. We usually toss them in with jams, jellies, pickles and other assorted canned goods we create over the summer. The bigger ones are for us and for better friends. Yes, I play favourites.
The coolest part is that I am listening to them popping as I am typing this up. People who can things know that those little popping sounds are a bit of instant gratification that has to hold you over for a few weeks until they are ready to eat.
I use the recipe below because it is very basic, and allows the peppers to supply all of the heat--don't let the "sweet" in the title fool you! The heat can be adjusted up by simply mixing in some hotter peppers, which in my case will be ready when they ripen in a few weeks.
http://www.food.com/recipe/sweet-pickled-banana-peppers-17254
This was the starting point. I have many more left on the plants that will be used when I do a hotter version of this in a month or so. Note there is only one yellow wax pepper that turned red (on top of the others on the left hand side), so I added three cayennes. Colour is everything!
The next step was chopping them up, which was mind numbingly boring but it had to be done.
The end product was 6 X 250 mL containers and 6 X 125 mL containers. The smaller ones are a great addition to gift bags for friends. We usually toss them in with jams, jellies, pickles and other assorted canned goods we create over the summer. The bigger ones are for us and for better friends. Yes, I play favourites.
The coolest part is that I am listening to them popping as I am typing this up. People who can things know that those little popping sounds are a bit of instant gratification that has to hold you over for a few weeks until they are ready to eat.
