Giardiniera Extraordinaire

I was trying to think of what to do with all of my yummy banana and jalapeno peppers that talked about in this post  I had way more than what I could put on a pizza or use in a pasta salad, so I decided to make some wonderful, pickle-y goodness called giardiniera. 

For those of your who do not know what this is, it is a sweet, tangy, and spicy mixture of a bunch of different crunchy vegetables.  You can put it on just about anything, including loaded tots at Bar Louie, which I talked about in a post sometime or another but I couldn't seem to locate where that was.... anyways. 

Giardiniera is also known has the hardest word to spell in the history of written language. 

Guardinera, gardiniera, jardinera, jar-din-ner...giardiniera

I have to google it every time I need to spell it. 

Giardiniera is italian, like this man.

Who I wish I had a recipe for, but I don't so I guess we'll just stick to this.  Back to my point.

My original recipe came from AllRecipes.com.  Do you ever go there?  I love that place. 

Ingredients

• 2 green bell peppers, diced
• 2 red bell peppers, diced
• 8 fresh jalapeno peppers, sliced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup fresh cauliflower florets
• 1/2 cup salt
• water to cover
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (5 ounce) jar pimento-stuffed green olives, chopped
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup olive oil

Directions

1. Place into a bowl the green and red peppers, jalapenos, celery, carrots, onion, and cauliflower. Stir in salt, and fill with enough cold water to cover. Place plastic wrap or aluminum foil over the bowl, and refrigerate overnight.
2. The next day, drain salty water, and rinse vegetables. In a bowl, mix together garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, black pepper, and olives. Pour in vinegar and olive oil, and mix well. Combine with vegetable mixture, cover, and refrigerate for 2 days before using.

But of course I didn't really follow the recipe, so here is what I did:

Gathered my peppers from my little garden.

I used red pepper, green pepper, carrots, celery, and garlic.  I didn't use cauliflower, and I didn't have any onion.

Chop them all up!

Cover with water and 1/2 cup of salt and refrigerate for 24 hours.  This makes the veggies a little bit soft.  

After refrigerating for 24 hours, take it out and drain it.  Be sure to rinse them to so all of that salt gets off of there. 

Now it's time for the dressing. 

The ingredients I used for the dressing: (same measurements as the recipe above)

-oil

-vinegar

-oregano

-crushed red pepper (I used way more than it said, because I like it SPICY)

-black pepper

-palmful of minced onion (I added this because I didn't have any fresh onion)

-1 cup of sugar (I like my giardinera a little sweet to, so I added the sugar on my own)

-I did not add the olives because I'm not crazy about that briney, olive taste.

Mix all of that up and pour over the drained veggies.

Cover and refrigerate for 2 days before eating.

After two days, put it in a mason jar for safe keeping!

You will need way more than one mason jar, but I had already eaten a bunch of it before I put it in here...Oops!