I happened to have taken Monday off, and since my hurricane clean up consisted of bringing my potted plants back out from the garage, I had a nice free day. (A note on Irene: we were extremely lucky here in Portland – I got off with a filthy car. BF is originally from Bennington, VT, and they were not so lucky. His family, and our friends there, are fine, but my thoughts are definitely with Vermonters with all they suffered in the storm).
So, what’s a girl to do a on a free day? Make Hot Pepper Jelly! This is from Liana Krissoff’s Canning for a New Generation. It uses apples as the pectin source, so I basically made pepper flavored applesauce, and then turned that into jelly. It’s pretty darn clear (though I would not be winning any country fair ribbons with it), and what I was able to sample was pretty delicious.
I used a combination of jalapenos from the CSA, and the Fooled You Peppers from my garden. She has several options for coloring the jelly, and I happened to have cranberries in my freezer. It’s not exactly the color I think of when I think pepper jelly (my standard being the sweet pepper jelly from Stonewall Kitchen), but it’ll definitely do.