Found Treasure and Habanero Jelly

I'm pretty awesome...so its needless to say that I had TWO vegetable gardens this year. We planted a ton of peppers and herbs and miscelaneous home depot plants in both of them in April/May'ish. One garden got a lot of attention and the other was left to waste away and grow wild. One was enough work.


Anyway, I was taking a look at the basil chaos that had become of the second garden last week and low and behold, I struck pay dirt. The Habanero had survived the insanity and made a bunch of peppers. See above.


Habaneros have great flavor, but they are very very hot. Burn the mouth. Singe the nostrils. If I was to take payment to rub one in my eye, the minimum payment would have to be $4,300. What is the minimum amount that you would accept to rub a habanero in your eye? Think about it.



So I had all of these peppers, and I had no idea what to do with them. A freeze was coming, so I got them all off of the plant. Luckily, Kimistry Kitchen was in town and she and StephSmoke both wanted to harness the flavor of the habaneros in a long lasting jelly. I thought Jelly would be more fun than rubbing them in my eyes. So, we immidietly had the helicopter come pick us up and we went to the store for provisions.

Apparenty you need:

1) Peppers
2) Vinegar of some sort
3) Red Bell Peppers
4) Sugar
5) Pectin. Which is like bone marrow for plants.
6) A Helicopter

Mix it all up and you've got Jelly. Heres how its done:

So you start out by chopping the lid off of the peppers. Do this.

Next you put them in a measuring device. As you can see from the picture, I wasn't really being serious about measuring an actual quantity of habanero. Here, I believe the recipe called for a certain amount of habanero, but I just went ahead and used what I had. Its not an exact science.

Then you put em in here. (This is why I didn't chop them up and measure. I didn't want capsicum hands if the machine was going to chop them up anyway).

Next measure out a quarter cup of vinegar. We used Rice Vinegar.

Next seed a red bell pepper.

...and put it all in a blender.

Again, dont get this in your eyes. It would really hurt. Its not often that a toast spread can double as a rape defense weapon. Not sure what else to say about that idea.

Mixing.

The Smell.

Very Intense.

Pur the mix in a pot.

Add a few cups of sugar.

Mix it up.

This is Pectin. It comes in a box. Its like gelatin, but from plants.

Pour in one package.

Kick it up to a boil, whisk, and reduce to simmer.

While that is going down, chop any leftover red bell pepper or jalapenos that you might have. You can drop them in the finished jelly product and it looks much more festive.

(it finally boiled)

(cooking action shot)

After 5 mins or so, let it cool, and skim off the foam on the top.

Some people would strain it here. I call those people less lazy than I am. So we didn't strain ourselves and we just put it in the jar. It was wicked wicked hot for a really long time. Be careful.


Add the festive pieces.

Mix in the bits i.e. GET FESTIVE

Finished Product!

Keep it refridgerated, and use it as any other jelly. We've been adding it to sauces instead of sugar. I also used some in a cocktail the other day, and its pretty good on sandwiches. Good glaze for pork. It's also good at parties, poured over cream cheese. On one occasion, I actually blended it with some left over cream cheese, spread it on toast, and made a turkey cilantro sandwich. Amazing.

Thanks to Kimistry for coming out of retirement and teaching me how to do this, and help with the blogging. Your audience misses you. Restart the blog, we implore you.

Sorry for the long gap in posting everyone. Should have more soon.

Thanks for reading!!

-SmokeHopper