Recently, a coworker brought in some extra veggies, and I ended up bringing home some banana peppers. I've never canned anything, but I thought this was a good excuse to start! I love pickled banana peppers on sandwiches and stuff, so I was very interested in trying to make some myself. The recipe and preparation is very easy. I won't lie, I just used this recipe that I found on food.com.
2 pint size canning jars with lids
1/2 lb of banana peppers, sliced. Remove the seeds and inner rib portions
2 cups white vinegar
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard and celery seed in a pan, bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat. With the peppers already separated into the canning jars, pour the hot pickling liquid into the jars, stopping about 1/2" from the top. Be sure that there is no liquid on the portion where the lid will go. Tighten the lids until tight. Store them for two weeks before enjoying.
I only had four peppers, so I was able to cut this recipe in half, and it ended up being about perfect. Plus, my wife had these tiny little canning jars that worked great for this too. Here's a picture:
This picture was taken literally a few minutes before I typed this, so I too will be waiting two weeks before enjoying these peppers.
Since that's the only food news I have to share with you, let's talk about another one of my favorite things... BEER! I figured I could start featuring a beer of the month. To honor IPA day from this last week, we'll talk about what is currently in my fridge: Titan IPA, from the Great Divide Brewing Company.
Like most IPAs it has an aggressive hop flavor in the forefront, but this particular brew has very malty back end to it. A little too malty for my taste. Having said that, it is very good. True to form, I will go ahead and give it a rating, on a 0-10 scale. With it's good balance of citrus and hopiness, it has a refreshing bitter taste. However, the malty flavor that follows can make it taste slightly heavy. Overall, I give it an 8.6/10.
I guess I need a reference for my scale. Here it goes:
0 - 0.9 = Is this beer, or urine?
1 - 1.9 = I'm not having a stroke, that's just my bitter beer face.
2 - 2.9 = I'd be perfectly fine if I never had another one.
3 - 3.9 = Good effort, but keep trying.
4 - 4.9 = I can see what you were trying to accomplish here.
5 - 5.9 = Hmm, I should probably have another one for a second opinion.
6 - 6.9 = Yeah, I'll definitely take another one.
7 - 7.9 = Mmmm, very satisfying. I'll be buying a six-pack.
8 - 8.9 = Dude, you have to try one of these.
9 - 10 = What a great beer! Now, go get your own before you drink all of mine!
