Pepper Jellies and more

What a wonderful day!  Got to hang out with my favorite little peep at the playground this morning and now I am being creative in the kitchen.

We are loaded with peppers right now so I looked up some recipes to make some pepper jellies and hot pepper relish and am tackling that today.

I used pepper jelly for the first time during a cooking class called meet the masters and have been hooked ever since.  In the class we made a very tiny sandwich called an amuse buche with the jelly and if I could I would eat that tiny sandwich every day.

I used recipes for the jellies from this book:

Green pepper jelly, pg 125:

I pureed the peppers and strained the juice

added all the other ingredients and boiled it

then canned it.

The second one I made was a balsamic red pepper jelly, pg 126, and I think I have a new love!
The steps to make it are pretty much the same except the ingredients are a bit different.  It's gorgeous and tasty; it starts out mellow and grows with tangy-ness ending with a sweet tone that will make you smile.

I finished the day off with a few bottles of hot pepper relish, yum!

This was a quick trial of the jellies with a sharp cheddar cheese, but I am imagining smoked salmon on a thin cracker with this jelly, a little cream cheese and black sesame seeds.....  I might just put this jelly on everything!

As always be careful when canning and follow a recipe from a trusted source without changes unless they note that you can make substitutions.  Canning is a wonderful way to keep food for a long time but it has to be done right.  Here is a good site to get you started.

I wish you enough jelly and spice!