Since my sweet banana peppers turned out to be mislabeled hot banana peppers, they haven’t been picked as much as I had hoped. Usually my peppers just get eaten straight off the plant by my mother when she comes by to visit, but she doesn’t do that when they’re this spicy. And since I don’t eat peppers at all, I needed to find something to do with these fellas. So I pickled them! Because they were so spicy, I wanted a sweet bread-and-butter taste to the brine. So this recipe works just as well with cucumbers if you want to make regular bread and butter pickles. And just as I always seem to do with this type of recipe, I made waaaaay too much brine. But that’s okay! I just save it in the fridge until I have another bowl of peppers ready to be pickled.
Sweet and spicy pickled banana peppers
- Hot banana peppers
- 4 cups distilled vinegar
- 5 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons mustard seed
- 2 tablespoons celery seed
- 2 teaspoons turmeric
- As many whole cloves of garlic as you have in one head
Rinse off your peppers. What, were you not planning to rinse your peppers? Animal. 
I’m not sure if this next step is necessary, but I figured better safe than sorry. I wanted to make sure the brine got inside the peppers so I cut some slits in them.
Now mix up all the other ingredients in a big pot. Bring to a boil and dump in the peppers.
Bring back to a boil. Then pack the peppers into a prepared Mason jar and can in a water bath canner for 15 minutes.
