What Do You Do with Banana Peppers

My banana pepper plant has been the most successful plant in my garden.  It has been producing lots of peppers since April.  Yes April and it is January.  I picked a bunch more this week and there are about 15 baby peppers growing now.  They will be ready in a couple of weeks.  I have pickled them once before and was very pleased with the outcome.  I decided I would go ahead and try it again but this time I had so many more peppers.  The last time I found a recipe for one jar.  This time I decided I wanted a sweeter pickled pepper.  I used a combination of the first recipe and the new recipe I found.

First attempt I used the recipe posted here - http://jessicasfoodspot.blogspot.com/2009/07/so-you-grew-gardennow-what-5.html

This time I used the first one and this one - http://www.food.com/recipe/sweet-pickled-banana-peppers-17254

Here are my ingredients

1/2 lb Banana Peppers
4 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp pepper corns

Directions

First sterilize your jars.  Since I was cutting some peppers and leaving some peppers whole, I used 2 different sized jars.  I ran the jars and rings through the hot water cycle in my dishwasher.  Once the cycle is done, remove the jars and dry them

In a saucepan bring the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed and pepper corns to a rolling boil.  Remove from heat.  In a large pan bring plain water to a boil.

While the brine is coming to a boil, prepare the peppers for canning.  I cut 3/4 of them into rings and removed the seeds.  The remaining 1/4 of peppers I cut off the stem and removed the seeds.  Fill the jars with the peppers.

Pour the brine over the pepper, leaving 1/2 inch space at the top.  (Note: I filled the jars completely to use all the brine.  Once the canning was done there is a space of about 1/2 inch at the bottom of the jar as you can see in the picture of my completed jars.  I did the same thing the first time and forgot.)  Place the lid and screw on a ring.  Place the jars in the boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.  Remove the jars from the water and allow to cool.  After a few minutes check the jars to make sure they sealed.  This is simple to do.  If the jar is not sealed the lidd with pop up and down.  If it did not seal then it must be stored in the refrigerator.  If it did seal they can be kept in the pantry until the seal is broken.

Some recipes say let the peppers sit for a few days and some say a couple of weeks.  I say you decide.  I have done both and the peppers are great after just a few days if you can't wait to eat them.