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Throwback to the summer; the Farmer’s Market was overflowing with all types of peppers this summer. So beautiful, in a plethora of colors and sizes, ranging wide across the Scoville scale. Mouth-watering and numbing! Definitely not in season anymore but the pickles are keeping us ‘warmed up’ in these frigid, snowy times as a fiery side dish, a condiment or something crunchy to bite into.

Hint: if you want to mellow the heat, slit the peppers and remove the seeds and inner skin as much as possible. Doing this, combined with the addition of salt, vinegar and maple syrup goes some ways in taming the pepper (warning: wear gloves!).

Ingredients:

• Peppers, half pound whole
• Garlic cloves, 4-5 crushed
• Mustard seeds, 2 tbsp. crushed
• Poppy seeds, 1 tbsp. crushed
• Sea salt, 1 tbsp.
• Apple cider vinegar, 1 cup
• Water, 1 cup
• Maple syrup, 2 tbsp.

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Recipe:

• Sterilize your jar and lid by submerging them in a pot of boiling water.
• Crush the mustard and poppy seeds in a pestle and mortar or a spice grinder.
• Combine the peppers, crushed seeds and garlic in the jar.
• In a saucepan, bring the water and vinegar to an almost boil and add the salt and syrup till blended. Conversely, you can also add the salt and syrup to the jar as I had done but it takes some time for it to dissolve and the flavors to combine.
• Let the liquid cool a little before adding to the jar. Use a fork to press the peppers down so that there are no air pockets. This will also create some holes in the peppers which will let the flavor get into the pickles.
• Leave the jar uncovered to cool down and then screw on the lid and refrigerate.
• The pickles should be ready to eat after 3-4 days.