Editor’s Note- this was originally written in the Fall of 2012. As it only lived on our Facebook page, and I’ve just finished canning my first batch of 2013 (the first snap lid of the year just ‘snapped!’) this seemed like a good time to move it to our more permanent website.

Nachos, pizza, sandwiches, eggs, burgers, chocolate cake, everything tastes better with Pickled Jalapenos on it (ok, maybe not cake). Once upon a time, back when I had more cents than sense, I used to fuel my Jalapeno obsession with the store bought version. I plodded along blissfully unaware of the home-crafted alternative. We’ve grown our own Jalapenos for years, but always to be consumed fresh during the summer with a handful being accidentally dried after being pushed to the back of the shelf behind the spice rack.

That is, until the Never Ending Fall of 2011 followed by the Winter of 2011/12 That Never Came. With this late warm weather came an abundance of fresh Jalapenos from our garden, far more than we had any chance of eating fresh without causing severe gastrointestinal distress.

By this point I had been living in the country long enough to know that people do in fact pickle things at home, yet I had never been brave enough or motivated enough to try it myself. With the goal of preserving our bounty for the coming year, I entered the brave new world of home pickling.

Never again will I settle for that store bought stuff. With peppers straight from our garden into the canner, it’s like fresh hotness happened in a jar.

Continue perusing Prized Pickled Peppers post, plus a recipe…