Sweet and Spicy Banana Peppers

I received a huge bag of fresh banana peppers from one of my co-workers and despite my best efforts, could not use them up before they started to go bad.... so, our choices were to either freeze them or pickle them for salads and sandwiches - Rachel and I decided to try our hand at pickling them.

We started with a mixture of equal parts vinegar and water and used the pickling jar as the measure - since we expected to end up with 4 jars, we added three jars vinegar and three water into a large pot.  Bring to a boil. In a separate pot, warm up water and drop in the lids and stand up the jars to warm them up.

Wash, clean and the cut the ends off the peppers, then remove all the seeds and cut in to slices.  Add them to the boiling mixture for 5 minutes.  To each jar, add 1 tsp pickling salt, 1 tsp sugar, 1 dash red pepper flakes, 1 head of garlic, and a jalapeno pepper. Add in the pepper slices, and then fill with the vinegar mixture to the neck of the jar.  Tap them on the counter to remove any air bubbles and then put the lids on the jars.  Seal tightly, and shake to mix the ingredients.  Once cool, keep the jars in the fridge - the peppers should be ready in about 2 weeks.  Enjoy