When life hands you..... Jalapenos?!?

Ok, so there are a few things I need to blog about but just haven't had the time because of Carter being born and this past week being so crazy. So, here is my (hopefully) last canning experience.

Apparently, my whole family thinks we are going to be in another great depression and its going to cost $1000 for a loaf of bread because they all planted these huge gardens and done other things I'll get to later. My Uncle Wayne's garden is bigger than my dad's. Yes, its true. Any who, he had a bunch of Jalapenos he needed to give away. Well, what better person but me! Yea! I happen to actually like pickled Jalapenos. I mean they are great with tacos, nachos, salsa, Buffalo Chicken Dip and the list goes on and on. So of course my dear ole dad says hey you want to can these? Well of course I do! I LOVE to cut up vegetables that you have to wear gloves to touch! Yea!

So we take 2 Wal-Mart bags full home with us. And yes, that is how you measure the amount of things that come from your garden. Just in case you didn't know. We decided that we would can one bag as just regular jalapenos and the other we would do candied ones. If you've never had candied jalapenos your missing out! So we started with the regular ones first. Zac decided he would cut and I would wash so we could get more of the seeds out. We were trying to make them more mild. Is that possible really? We get started by gloving up. You must wear rubber gloves when you get hot peppers. My dad tried it once without gloves, not fun. So Zac starts cutting. Wow I had no idea they were so strong. I mean I knew they were strong hence the gloves but dang the babies are smokin! As he is cutting he is putting them in a bowl for me to wash. Not a great day to start getting a cold and have a sore throat by the way! As I am washing, I start to cough. After the cough comes sneezing. After the sneezing comes the watering eyes. Let me tell you that it was hurting me so bad that I had to take a towel and wrap it around my face. I looked like a member of the Taliban. Not joking. I had to take several breaks. I mean, really, should you have to take a break when you are just washing vegetables? Umm no, you shouldn't. Honey, these potatoes are just wearing me out. I think I need a break. NOT THE SAME THING!! Anyway, then Zac starts sneezing. I thought "Really? is it worth all the pain!?!" "Who decided this was a good idea? Damn those Mexicans and their wonderful food!" By the time the whole process was over we were both crying coughing and sneezing. It was terrible! No worries though, we did not contaminate the peppers. All in all we had 7 pint jars of pickled jalapeno peppers and no, Peter Piper never showed up to help!