At the beginning of the summer, when we were still picking out plants and herbs for our container garden and dreaming of August's tomatoes, we thought some pepper plants might be a fun change of pace from the usual choices — who wouldn't love fresh pico de gallo or sliced fresh banana peppers at the height of summer's heat? Little did we know, we had purchased super-producing plants, which has given us what seems like hundreds of peppers, and no ideas of what to do with all of them. So, when in doubt, can it!
Here's a recipe we worked out to can those extra peppers, but it's a basic template that could work with other vegetables as well (cauliflower works especially well, yum!).
Pickled Peppers
4 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tablespoons sugar
Olive oil
1 onion, medium diced
2 medium-sized carrots, medium diced
Peppers
Dried oregano
Bay leaves
Mix together the vinegar, water, and sugar in a medium saucepan and heat until the mixture reaches a simmer.
Meanwhile, sauté the onions and carrots in olive oil until tender.
Using pint-sized canning jars, place approximately 1 tablespoon of the mixture in the bottom of a jar, then add the peppers (if you make 3 small incisions on each pepper, the flavors of the brine will infuse more quickly).
Add one bay leaf and 1/2 teaspoon of oregano to each jar. Seal the jars, and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
The flavor for these peppers will be best after at least two weeks.
Stephanie Fees is a professional chef who lives and works in Lewisburg, West Virginia.
Related: Cool Recipe: Easy Japanese Pickled Cucumber
(Image: Stephanie Fees)
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Recipe: Spring Fruit and Nut Tabouli
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Monterey Pitcher fr...
The Ultimate Used Furniture Cleaning Kit
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Can I omit the sugar or is it a key preservative for pickling?
No salt? I do a lot of canning and have never seen a pickling recipe without salt. That also seems like a lot of vinegar. I usually do a 1:1 ratio of vinegar to water.
@Smultronsoul, while sugar is a part of the preservative process, it's more important here to balance out the bitterness of the vinegar.
@charise depending on the vegetable, the water/vinegar ratio needs to be high if you're water bath canning, not refrigerator pickling. Beets, for example, need a 2:1 vinegar:water ratio for long term storage to avoid bacterial growth.
This recipe needs to be written more clearly. In two places, it refers to 'the mixture'. One reference is to the vinegar mixture and the second appears to be to the carrot and onion mixture. Also it never explicitly says that the vinegar mixture is put into the jars to cover the peppers. And there is no indication of how many jars this will yield.
I water bath can my pickled jalapenos with a 1:1 ratio of vinegar to water without problems. Perhaps the difference is that I use salt? I know that salt helps preserve and keep bacteria at bay as well. I could see needing more vinegar when not using salt.