Hot Pepper Jelly

My style of cooking is fast, easy and (hopefully) tasty. Baking bores me. Letting dough rise is tantamount to watching paint dry. I'm a methodical cook, but an impatient one too. So you won't find me making finicky sweets or elaborate cakes. (Oddly, a 12-hour smoked brisket doesn't faze me.)

So when the good people at Bernardin sent me their brand new Home Canning Starter Kit, I thought, feh. I don't do canning. But the thing was huge, I was heading up to the cottage, would have time to kill, and my brother David would be bringing the recipe card for his famous red pepper jelly.

The kit came neatly contained within the massive canning pot -- everything you'd need from a funnel to a rack -- even the pectin. (It only comes with four jars though so you'll have to buy some more unless you only want to can two or three peaches.) We got to work by seeding a bunch of bell peppers and Jalapenos, then blitzed everything together in the Cuisinart. And then I got bored and went for a swim while David did the rest.

Before long, we had a year's worth of cheese's best friend.

On an unrelated note, I'm off to Northern Manitoba this afternoon to do this. If the Net connection is working, I'll try to post some pics while I'm there. In the meantime, enjoy David's delicious recipe.

DAVID'S HOT PEPPER JELLY (adapted from Epicurious.com)

(makes 8 jam jars)

1 pound red bell peppers

1/2 pound green bell peppers

6 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups white vinegar

2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes

2 Jalapenos

1 packet (57grams) Bernarin Fruit Pectin

Cut the bell peppers into 1-inch pieces and in a food processor chop them vety fine. Transfer the chopped peppers to a deep kettle, add the sugar, the vinegar, and the red pepper flakes, and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the pectin and boil the mixture over moderately high heat, stirring, until it reaches the jelly stage. Transfer the jelly to sterilized jam jars (see instructions below), filling the jars to within 1/4 inch of the tops, wipe the rims with a dampened towel, and seal the jars. The jelly keeps, sealed, in a cool dark place indefinitely.

To Sterilize Jars and Glasses For Pickling and Preserving:

Wash the jars in hot suds and rinse them in scalding water. Put the jars in a very large pot and cover them with hot water. Bring the water to a boil, covered, and boil the jars for 15 minutes from the time that steam emerges from the big pot. Turn off the heat and let the jars stand in the hot water. Just before they are to be filled invert the jars onto a kitchen towel to dry. (The jars should be filled while they are still hot.) Sterilize the jar lids for 5 minutes, or according to the manufacturer's instructions.