Ghost Chili Pickles

This year in my garden I planted lettuce, 1 cucumber plant, 1 tomato plant, 2 pea plants a couple trenches of potatoes and a row of sweet corn. The lettuce has all grown up, eaten, and now has been pulled from the garden.  Only one of my pea plants grew and has yet to produce more than about 6 pods.  Tomato plant is in full force and has about 30 green tomatoes on it, and I have picked 3 ripe ones so far.  The potatoes I have no idea about because I have never grown them before.  The sweet corn took some time to take off, but at last check, I have about 9 ears growing at this point.  My one cucumber plant has produced me about a dozen cukes so far, most of which the fam has just eaten with ranch, or I have made into creamy cucumbers.  The other day, my mother in law dropped off a small bag of cucumbers from her neighbor.  I wasn't going to make any pickles this year, especially since I have about 8 jars still from the previous years, but didn't want them to go to waste.  I also recalled that I have some dehydrated ghost chilies in the freezer, and thought I should marry these together and make some hot a$$ pickles.

I have made jalapeno pickles in the past, which I really like, so why not step up the heat considerably and see what happens!  I headed off to our little grocery store in town because I was out of vinegar and dill. I didn't see any dill in the fresh produce section, so I asked the lady working there and she said that she is unable to get it from her supplier, but the guy that works in the deli brought some in today from his garden to use for making salads of something.  She went and asked him and he gave me a handful for free!  Otherwise I would have made dill-less pickles.  I added a bit of sugar into each jar to sweeten them up just a touch.  I also added a little mustard seed and Ball makes a pickle crisp granule that I also put in prior to adding the brine.

 I made 3 pints of spears and 1 1/2 pints of chunks. I now have 5 jars of ghost chili pickles in a hot water bath.  I think it is going to be really hard to let these guys sit for 6 weeks to give them a try.  I am hoping I will be able to make it until Christmas time to let these mill in that ghost chili heat a little longer and hopefully get a little hotter......the taste and heat on these to TBD, but when they are done, I hope they are yum.  Eat up!

Recipe:
6 1/2 cups water
3 1/4 cups white vinegar
1/4 + 1/8 cups salt
cucumbers - sliced, speared, or chunked, or minis
dill
sugar
mustard seed
peppers, any variety, if desired

Boil water, vinegar and salt for 15 minutes.  Pack cucumbers in sterilized jars with dill (i used 1 fairly large sprig in each jar, but use what you think) and 1 tsp sugar per pint.  After the cucumbers are in the jar, add 1/8 tsp mustard seed and 1/8 tsp pickle crisp per pint.  Fill jars with brine and seal.  Place in hot water bath for 15-20 minutes.  Let sit 4-6 weeks before enjoying.

*I have also added a garlic clove to the pickles previously to give a slightly different taste

***UPDATE*** I ate some of these pickles after letting them sit for 2 weeks.  They have very nice smoky flavor and heat from the ghost chilis, although not nearly as hot as I anticipated them to be.  All in all, these turned out to be pretty good.  I traded one of my jars off to my brother in law who made some ghost chili salsa. That was some good stuff too.  I am going to let these pickles sit for another 2 weeks before I crack open the next jar, and hope to have at least 1 jar sit for 6 months.  But that is going to be hard.