More canning--Habanero Gold

Habanero Gold
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving Copyright 2006

1/3 cup finely sliced dried apricots
¾ cup white vinegar
¼ cup finely chopped red onion
¼ cup finely chopped seeded red bell pepper
¼ cup finely chopped seeded habanero peppers
3 cups granulated sugar
1 pouch (3oz) liquid pectin

1. In a large, deep stainless steel saucepan, combine apricots and vinegar. Cover and let stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
3. Add red onion, red pepper and habanero peppers to apricots. Stir in sugar. Over high heat, stirring constantly, bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Stir in pectin. Boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from heat and quickly skim off foam.
4. Quickly pour hot jelly into jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
5. Place jars in canner, ensuring that they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove jars, cool and store.
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I canned a few things earlier in the summer and then I took a break for a while. I enjoyed it but it's pretty easy to get carried away with canning. I'm only comfortable with canning things in a water bath and there are only so many pickles and preserves we can eat so after a few pickles and jams, I decided to cool it.

But (there's always a 'but') I had heard a lot about this recipe in canning circles so when I came across some habanero peppers, I had to make this even though I had several jars of hot pepper jelly on the shelf already. I'm glad I did since this was definitely deserving of the hype and it wasn't really as hot as I thought it would be. The apricots added nice flavor - much better than just sugar and peppers.

I didn't do any cooking this weekend. I didn't miss it either. I need a break every once and a while. I managed to catch up the recipe archives. I was falling way behind. Dial-up sucks! I'm going to upgrade to something faster.

My cookbook guy was back at the auction. Yay! I wasn't going to give up on him until his stand was empty but he still had merchandise sitting there even though he was MIA 3 or 4 weeks in a row. He said he had vehicle trouble. He warned me that next week he won't be there - he'll be going to a prison to do ministry work. He laughed and said 'I'll be in prison' and I said that I thought maybe that's where he's been the past few weeks lol.

Blast From The Past: Balsamic Red Pepper Jelly from July 2007. That was equally as good as today's recipe, I thought. And with using a whole jalapeno, seeds and all, it had the same kick as the habaneros which I seeded. I don't think I could chose one over the other.

Question of the Day: Any ideas on what I can do with all of this hot pepper jelly?