Hot and Spicy Pickled Peppers, Carrots, and Cauliflower

 Spicy Pickled Veggie Goodness

Yes, that's what this post is all about. First off, aside from my adoration of ginger, my second love would be pickled anything. Dilly beans, pickled peppers, good ol' regular pickles, pickled beets, getting the picture here? Well, today, I decided to pickle. I was inspired to do some preserving as today was pretty much the first REAL day of harvesting from the garden. My daughter and I were full of giggles going from plant to plant picking and digging and getting our hands all covered in dirt. Good times and great memories :) 

Ok, so I have to share a picture of my little sweety and our crop of home grown goodness before I get into the pickling fun. (please forgive the fact that these are cell phone pics)

So the squash blossom in the ear was her idea. She kept giggling that she was the princess of "Garden Land".

Yay for vegetables!

So my pickling adventure starts with Rachel Ray's Giardiniera recipe found in the July/August issue. Now I changed it up a bit to utilize my gypsy peppers that sort of went a bit crazy this year. I also doubled the brine as it just did not seem like enough.

Now here is my adaptation of the recipe

Hot and Spicy Pickled Vegetables

2 cups cauliflower florets

2 cups sliced carrots (cut into bite sized pieces)

ice water

2 1/2 cup cider vinegar (her recipe calls for white wine)

2/3 cups sugar

2 tablespoons salt

1 cup shredded fennel (hers calls for 2 cups)

1 cup pearl onions (hers calls for 2 cups)
1 fennel bulb sliced into 1" pieces

2 cups gypsy or bell peppers

1 cup sliced jalapenos

4 cups water

10 dried hot red peppers (or 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes)

2 teaspoons mustard seeds

1 teaspoon celery seeds

In a large pot of boiling water cook the cauliflower and carrots for 2 minutes. Drain and transfer to the ice water once 2 minutes is up. In the same pot, bring the water, sugar, and salt to a boil. Add the cooled carrots, cauliflower, and remaining ingredients and bring to a boil again. Remove from heat. With a slotted spoon transfer vegetables into hot sterilized jars. Ladle in the hot pickling liquid leaving 1/2" headspace. Seal jars, then process jars for 15 minutes in a water bath. This made 4 half pints.

Enjoy and happy canning everyone!