Saturday, November 12, 2011 Pickled Peppers Rock - Who Knew?


Yesterday, when I woke up at 4AM for no good reason I came out to find this note on my computer. Apparently after I'd gone to bed at 9PM my husband tried the pickled peppers I'd made him the week before. Looks like he liked them.

When he came home from the supermarket a week ago with two huge peppers telling me I was going to pickle them like we'd talked about I really had no idea what he was referring to. We talked about pickled peppers? I had zero recollection of the conversation but I said I'd make them for him. I, of course, turned to the Google to find a recipe. This was the tricky part because I'm not really canning them, I don't have the equipment to do that, so I needed a recipe that didn't rely on that ancient method of food preservation.

It took a while but I found one. I didn't have all of the proper ingredients (ground spices instead of whole) and I also didn't measure a darn thing. But what's new? Here's an approximation of what I did...

Two large green peppers, cored and cut into finger width slices.

Put them into plastic containers, stuffed to the top.

In a sauce pan mix equal parts red wine vinegar and water, enough to cover the peppers in their containers.

Add to that a palm full (palmful?) of salt, a palmful (palm full?) of sugar, 3 chopped garlic cloves, a couple bay leaves, and whole spices (if you have them, I used ground) of peppercorn, cumin and coriander.

Bring all that to a boil and then cover the peppers in their containers, all the way to the top. Put on the lids, push out that last bit of air if you can and put them away in the fridge for a week.

Now, I've gotta say, I had not planned on eating these. They were for my husband and I was happy to make them, but the idea of pickled peppers did nothing for me. Well, let me tell you. I was wrong! He made me try one yesterday. First he made me eat a piece of salami with some sharp provolone. Then he handed me the pickled pepper - begrudgingly I bit into it...WOW! Crunchy, spicy, sour, sweet - it was the best darned pickled thing I've ever eaten! Incredibly tasty, I was won over by these little slices of pickle perfection. I have to insist you try them. Every tray of pepperoni, cheese and crackers that you make from this day forward should be accompanied by these little vinegar dreams.

They'll last a few weeks in the fridge, if we don't eat them all, but we might. I see Italian subs in our future...Mmm...

-HH

1 comments:

Jessie said...

I think Devaney would like these a lot!

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