I love stepping outside of the ordinary and trying something new! New foods new places – I am a traveler at heart. No one told my wallet so farmer it is! What I’ve come to learn is that is actually the next best thing. Those that can’t travel, grow!

New and exciting is adventurous and all however there are a few good ‘ole foods that have found a home in my heart and one of those is pickles! I absolutely love pickled foods – anything from okra to beans! Now you know pickled cucumbers fall into that group! In recent years my husband has begun grilling with pickle juice. You would have to ask him the point of it. All I know is it tastes DIVINE by the time it hits the plate! So here at the Bain home, I eat the pickles, Mr. Bain Home Gardener grills with the juice. Funny right? Well I slipped up and said I was making more pickles and now a certain someone is holding me to it. Join as we make easy Jalapeno Garlic Peppers and Pickled Jalapenos at the same time!

• 1 medium cucumber
• 1 Garlic clove with stem
• 5 medium jalapenos
• 1 sprig fresh Dill

• Wash a 16 oz Mason jar appropriate to the size of the cucumbers you have on hand (if you are making spears as we did) and an 8 oz jar for jalapenos. We didn’t account for how much the jalapenos would cook down so used 2 16 oz jars when actually only an 8 oz  jar was actually needed.

 

• Sterilize jar, lid and ring. Since we are doing a refrigerated version just for our family this step really isn’t necessary however we are being extra cautious while maintaining a certain ease. We simply washed our jars well with really warm soapy water and rinsed. We then placed water into a 8 × 8 pan and placed jars upside down in pan with water at the base in a 250° oven. We added the rings and lids to this pan as well.

 

• Chop the cucumber, jalapenos and green garlic (up to the beginning of the leaves) to desired size. Consider wearing gloves when handling the peppers AND DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE!

• Celery Salt
• Rosemary
• Garlic Powder
•  Dill Seed

•  4 African Peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon of pickling salt
• 1 tablespoon of sugar

• We used 10 ounces water to 10 ounces of white vinegar, a one to one ratio.

• Mix brine with jalapenos and garlic into a pot. Add spices. Bring to a boil. Boil for one minute then simmer for 4 minutes. You will notice the deep green color changing on the jalapenos to a more olive color. This means the vinegar is infusing into the jalapenos and the jalapeno flavor is diffusing into the brine. This is exactly what we want!

• With about 1 minute left to simmer carefully remove the jars from the oven.

• Loosely pack cucumber spears into the 16 oz jar leaving room for jalapeno/brine mixture.

• Using a spoon, scoop out 2 tablespoons of jalapenos and place them into the jar of cucumbers. Then pour enough of the brine over the spears to cover them. Leave a quarter inch head-space in jar.

• Pour the remaining, jalapeno brine mixture into your 8 oz jar leaving the same quarter inch head-space. These pickled jalapenos are great on tacos, burritos and greens!

• Using a paper towel dipped in vinegar, wipe the rims of both jars.

 

• Apply lids and rings securely.

• Now carefully flip the the jars upside down. Allow to stay in this position until completely cool. The heat will normally seal the jar. Again this is just something we do for small batches for the family.

• Refrigerate. We refrigerate as a precaution since the pickles are not water bath processed or pressure canned. Better safe!