Pickled Jalapenos- Crunchy, sour, hot and salty!

Sometimes you need to add a little something to a meal. Pickled Jalapenos is the perfect little something- hot, sour, salty! I love having things in the fridge that I can add to a meal that makes the meal easier to make. Pickled and marinated veggies are perfect. And as I am in the South, the pickles are typically vinegar based, as brine based would ferment too quickly to be viable. All you need is the main dish and few pickled and marinated items from the fridge for an easy meal- any time of the year!

I think of this recipe as a ratio recipe- it reminds me of my pottery glaze mixing days.

Here's how I did it, recipe below!

I started with washed veggies.

Then sliced them- carrots on the diagonal and jalapenos were cored then sliced. This came to about 4 cups of sliced veggies.

I mixed the vinegar, water, salt, organic sugar and garlic in the pot.

I added the carrots and onions to the pot for about 5 minutes to give them a head start since they are tougher than the peppers.

These happen to be the first jalapenos of the season and quite hot, coring them is an easy way to control the heat and enjoy the pepper flavor. I cored about 75% of then, the smaller ones were harder to do... so I left them, after all, you want some heat!

All that left is filling and waiting!

Ready for lunch! Crunchy, sour, hot, and salty!

Pickled Jalapenos

1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water (I used tap, but you could use distilled)
1 tablespoon sugar or choice (honey, agave, etc)
1 tablespoons salt
about 12 jalapenos (washed and sliced)
2 carrots ( washed peeled and sliced)
1/2 a small onion
2 cloves of garlic, halved

sterilized quart canning jar

Boil the white vinegar, water, salt and sugar for one minute, add sliced jalapenos, carrots, and onions.
Remove pan from heat and let sit for 15 minutes.
During your 15 minutes you can sterilize your canning jar and lid my boiling them in water for 5 minutes. remove from water with tongs and let rest on a clean kitchen towel (not terry).

After the 15 minutes are up, add the jalapenos, carrots and onions to the sterilized jar with tongs, then pour over the remaining liquid. Make sure you have enough liquid to cover the veggies! If not top off with vinegar. Add the lid and let cool on the counter, then refrigerate. After two days, give them a try! These should be used within a few of weeks- like you would any opened jar or pickles!

Great with tuna salad, on top of a barbeque salad, on a burger, or if you are having and "off paleo" meal, try them on hot dogs and nachos. You can even use the vinegar for a home made salad dressing!

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This recipe was designed to work for the spring and summer seasons, to take advantage to the current crops and as a refrigerated, not canned, condiment. If you are making this at the end of the season or you want to actually can them to store outside the fridge, please follow your preferred canning methods.

In a Pickle- Half Sour Pickles from the garden

Every summer I dally with pickling, usually cukes... though there was that period that I was obsessed with the perfect chow-chow... then there was the crabapple ketchup. This summer, I'm giving half sour pickles another go. My pickle muse and guide is a blog I have been following for a while called Nourishing Days. Shannon also blogs for Cultures for Health.

So I was inspired by Shannon to try half sours again. My last experiment started to scare me when the pickling liquids turned cloudy and formed a "scum". By the way, as a Southerner, I know about vinegar based pickling, which requires boiling water baths for canning- cloudy and scum equals tossing out food or becoming very sick. Historically half sours are not tackled in the south, because it is so hot that they "sour" quickly. But as the south is typically air conditioned indoors, I'm going with it.

I decided to keep the small batch (one jar) of pickles next to the air conditioning vent- cold and relatively dark. I am growing two kinds of cucumbers in the garden, so both are in the jar for the first harvest. You can find great recipes with measurements at Cultures for Health, so I will not need to reproduce their recipe here. I used the one that required tree leaves for crispness- I went with oak from the front yard and washed them carefully!

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Here is my pictorial essay of the pickling process. By the way, I tried them after about a week and they were delish. Thanks, Shannon!

Cukes, salt, dill, peeled garlic, peppercorns, red pepper flakes and some little oak leaves on my favorite cutting board.

Layering the herbs in the bottom of the quart jar.

Last layer. Topping the cukes with dill, oak leaves, peppercorns and red pepper flakes.

Pouring the brine.

Lovely jar of future pickles!

So, cucumbers, dill, and oak leaves from the yard/ garden, peppercorns and red pepper flakes from Penseys, garlic from the store... future crunchy pickles, indeed!

 

*** This post has been reposted from www.BergereChair.blogspot.com, my interior design and green living blog.

No claims are made about this, or any content, follows the exact tenants of the Paleo diet. Please use your own judgment when choosing the foods that follow your paleo diet and how you preserve foods. Please use the link about for cultures for health to find the full recipe and an explanation on why there are oak leaves in my jar of pickles!