Spicy Hot Pickled Carrots

The signs of fall are everywhere in the bayou and now the temperatures here in southeast Texas have cooled down to the point where we can enjoy fires in our outdoor fireplace at little cabin on the bayou's porch.  This morning, we enjoyed a wonderful fire with a view of a little bit of fog floating on bayou.

This has been yet a busy canning week and I put up five quarts of vegetable soup and nine pints of lingua (beef tongue for my partner who loves it).  I like having a lot of soups on hand as they are soothing on those cold days when Ernest and I come in from fishing or he comes in from a morning hunt.

I recently came across a really wonderful recipe for Spicy Hot Pickled Carrots here on the internet (isn't the internet a wonderful place to find recipes??) and decided to give them a try.  I tried to post a picture of the ones I made but this thing is not cooperating with letting me put a pic on here so you'll have to use your imagination.

Spicy Hot Picked Carrots

5 1/2 cups vinegar
3 1/2 bags of whole carrots
1 cup water
2 tsp. salt (use canning salt)
2 tsp. dill seed
1-2 garlic cloves per jar
3 1/2 tsp. hot pepper flakes (you can put less to your taste)

Prepare jars and lids for canning.  Cut carrots into matchsticks that are pint sized jar length.  Make sure you cut them to allow adequate head space (at least 1/2 inch).  Heat vinegar, salt, dill seed, water to boiling.  Add carrots and cook in brine for 10 minutes.  Add garlic and hot pepper flakes to the bottom of each jar.  Fill each jar with carrots and add brine to within 1/2 inch of top of jar.  Wipe jar rims, add heated lids, and apply rings fingertip tight.  Process in hot water bath for 15 minutes.  The original recipe says you get 6 pints but I actually got 7.

*****These are not only easy but they are gorgeous on the shelf.  The orange in the carrots with the red of the hot pepper flakes really makes it really beautiful in the jars.  This is really a nice fall project!!