Pepper Jelly

Yield: 7 cups. Mince peppers in a food processor; don't mush them. Or, if you really want to, mince by hand wearing gloves. Put juice into an enameled or stainless steel or otherwise non-acid reacting pan. Simmer juice uncovered until warm. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Put on a mask or cloth bandanna around breathing orifices to protect vs. pepper gas. Add peppers and cook until color intensifies and they look done. Add gelatin and stir until it dissolves. Begin testing jelly with a spoon; when syrup falls off spoon in a single mass, or "sheet" instead of droplets when dripped slowly off a spoon held sideways, jelly is ready for canning. While this is cooking you should be preparing your jars so you dont wind up with jelly that jells in the pot before your jars are ready (I had this happen once). P.S. Your tolerance for hotness may vary so this may come out "too hot"; if so reduce peppers next recipe and give this as a gift to a friend with an asbestos tongue. My brother has said tongue type and i give him all my too hot kitchen oopses. He loves them! This goes well with roasts, esp. pork, cold leftover meats, and has no fat in it! About 40 calories per Tablespoon and high in vitamins. Also a conversation maker as an hors d' oeuvre: Put a bit of cream cheese on good crackers, spoon jelly over cheese, voila! Looks neat too, esp. if your jelly is clear and has 3 colors. Red and green only makes a nice Xmas gift. Some folks add just a bit of cranberry juice to the recipe to tint the clear base pink, but I like it clear. I hear you can make this almost white-based if you use white vinegar instead of juice and use more pectin. Sometimes this will jell without pectin, sometimes not; depends on the apple juice I think. You may just use 1/2 cup hot peppers instead of the 1/4 and 1/4 above. (1 U.S. cup here means a volume unit of 8 oz.) The original recipe recommended: 1/4 cup "hottish" yellow peppers such as waxes 1/4 cup red hot peppers 2/3 cup mild bells But I have had success using: 1/8 cup hot green peppers 1/8 cup green bells 1/4 cup hot red peppers 2/3 cup golden-orange bells Since I couldnt find yellow "hottish" peppers.