Had a rough time figure out how to post pictures at first, but that was corrected (see pod porn below).
Stefan_W's Great Big Beefy Pepper Adventure: Grow List
- Thread starter Stefan_W
- Start date
Thank you very much! I am a very big believer in using everything my garden produces over the course of summer. That means lots of experimenting with meals and of course canning and preserving.
The first thing I did with the peppers this weekend is I used them for making pickles for the winter. The basic ingredients are garden fresh cucumbers, dill, garlic and about a half a cayenne per jar. The water and vinegar are equal, with a half a cup of pickling salt per 5+5 cups of water and vinegar. The cayenne peppers do not make it hot. Instead, they add this nice tang to the pickles that makes them extra addictive.
This is the garden fresh dill, garlic and cayennes. My rule of thumb is that the amount of dill and garlic I add per jar should be fatal to anyone without Polish blood running through their veins. This approach has served me well so far.
This is the complete project. The ones on the left with XP have a full cayenne pepper per jar, while the others have a half of one. There are a couple with extra dill and garlic but no cayennes for my little girl.
My project for tomorrow is to take a big chunk out of the peppers by making a sauce. The sauce I made last weekend was so good that friends are requesting I make more, and we have burned through a big batch in 7 days. Pics to come once it is done.
This is the garden fresh dill, garlic and cayennes. My rule of thumb is that the amount of dill and garlic I add per jar should be fatal to anyone without Polish blood running through their veins. This approach has served me well so far.
This is the complete project. The ones on the left with XP have a full cayenne pepper per jar, while the others have a half of one. There are a couple with extra dill and garlic but no cayennes for my little girl.
My project for tomorrow is to take a big chunk out of the peppers by making a sauce. The sauce I made last weekend was so good that friends are requesting I make more, and we have burned through a big batch in 7 days. Pics to come once it is done.
Hi Stefan,
I have been following your glog, and all I can say, nice work!
The pickled cucumber is made in the same way in Hungary, and regarding your statement about the dill and the Polish people, well, it must be true, since I am mad about dill, and my ancestors came from Poland.
Last autumn my dumbass brother spread a lot of dill seeds over the yard, so by this summer it looked like this:
Cheers,
Balázs
I have been following your glog, and all I can say, nice work!
The pickled cucumber is made in the same way in Hungary, and regarding your statement about the dill and the Polish people, well, it must be true, since I am mad about dill, and my ancestors came from Poland.
Last autumn my dumbass brother spread a lot of dill seeds over the yard, so by this summer it looked like this:
Cheers,
Balázs
Thank you very much
I will probably keep saving those for snacking, which uses about one per day. But the production rate is starting to go up, so I'll have to start using them for other things too.
PaulG
eXtreme
Very nice, Stefan. You are getting some nice harvests from your garden.
The Jalapenos look fabulous. I love to cross slice 'em and pickle. OOOh,
I just remembered, I have a jar of pickled peppers in my cabinet from last
Fall. Dang, I forgot all about it until just now
Good growin' north of the border, bro!
The Jalapenos look fabulous. I love to cross slice 'em and pickle. OOOh,
I just remembered, I have a jar of pickled peppers in my cabinet from last
Fall. Dang, I forgot all about it until just now
Good growin' north of the border, bro!
Very nice, Stefan. You are getting some nice harvests from your garden.
The Jalapenos look fabulous. I love to cross slice 'em and pickle. OOOh,
I just remembered, I have a jar of pickled peppers in my cabinet from last
Fall. Dang, I forgot all about it until just now
Good growin' north of the border, bro!
Thanks for the kind words Paul, if my garden ends up half as nice as yours I'll definitely be accomplishing something!
PaulG
eXtreme
Now you are the one with the kind words!
Have a good week, bro.
Those Jalapenos look huge. That;s how I like them, ripened and
splitting at the seems. Nice work with the pickles. Garlic and chili's
are a must, with the dill of course. Good luck with your hot sauce
making. I was about to puree a big pot of sauce today but it would
be easier on a weekday after work when I'm the only one in the
kitchen. The fumes can become brutal for those who are not use
to it
Greg
splitting at the seems. Nice work with the pickles. Garlic and chili's
are a must, with the dill of course. Good luck with your hot sauce
making. I was about to puree a big pot of sauce today but it would
be easier on a weekday after work when I'm the only one in the
kitchen. The fumes can become brutal for those who are not use
to it
Greg
Canning. Nice. Something I haven't done this year. Will have to revert to that when I harvest. Great glog. Keep it up.
No kidding, those fumes can be awful! Thank you for the well wishes!
Thank you very much! I love canning, it is a great way of keeping the gardening going all year long.
I spent a part of the evening making some sauce. The basic recipe starts with one of the ones on Pepper Joe's site, but as I go along I am tweaking it based on my own tastes.
The main ingredients are garden fresh peppers, garden fresh carrots, onions from a local farmer's market (no room in the garden for them, and I can find cheap organic ones easily), and some limes. I bought three different types of onions--white, yellow and purple--to see if different onions change the taste. The only spice is white pepper, and there is a base of vinegar.
I was really hoping to use up as many of those peppers in the bowl as possible, and I ended up at about 15 peppers in each of the three batches. Of course, the peppers have to be de-seeded and blanched before being blended. De-seeding is like watching paint dry in terms of how fun it is. A trick I discovered by accident is to use leftover water from boiling corn on the cob. This naturally sweetens everything a little bit and gives it some depth.
I was trying to figure out how to position the camera for the best pictures. Some ideas were better than others, as this picture shows. I'll file this under "sounded like such a good idea at the time..."
First batch waiting to be blended.
And the finished product. The carrots give it a pretty orange colour. I thought the purple onions would change the colour but they ended up exactly the same, probably because there is only a very thin layer of purple on the outside. I wrap the top because the plastic is more porous than glass, so it would be harder to clean the capsicum off of it.
One batch made enough for four small sized jars, or two small and one medium. I did a lot of the small this time because many of these will end up as gifts.
The entire thing. As you can see, taking out 40-50 peppers barely dented my pepper bowl. I pick about 10 a day at this point with that number increasing all of the time, so I think I am in trouble. I put the type of onion on the snap lid as well as a number. The number is the heat level, which was actually not determined by the number of peppers or the pepper type. As the water was used and re-used it became loaded with capsicum, so without doing anything at all the batches got hotter and hotter. If I did a fourth batch I could have skipped the peppers and it still would have been fine.
Thanks for having a look, and let me know if you want a jar!
You wont have to wait long, just posting it
The main ingredients are garden fresh peppers, garden fresh carrots, onions from a local farmer's market (no room in the garden for them, and I can find cheap organic ones easily), and some limes. I bought three different types of onions--white, yellow and purple--to see if different onions change the taste. The only spice is white pepper, and there is a base of vinegar.
I was really hoping to use up as many of those peppers in the bowl as possible, and I ended up at about 15 peppers in each of the three batches. Of course, the peppers have to be de-seeded and blanched before being blended. De-seeding is like watching paint dry in terms of how fun it is. A trick I discovered by accident is to use leftover water from boiling corn on the cob. This naturally sweetens everything a little bit and gives it some depth.
I was trying to figure out how to position the camera for the best pictures. Some ideas were better than others, as this picture shows. I'll file this under "sounded like such a good idea at the time..."
First batch waiting to be blended.
And the finished product. The carrots give it a pretty orange colour. I thought the purple onions would change the colour but they ended up exactly the same, probably because there is only a very thin layer of purple on the outside. I wrap the top because the plastic is more porous than glass, so it would be harder to clean the capsicum off of it.
One batch made enough for four small sized jars, or two small and one medium. I did a lot of the small this time because many of these will end up as gifts.
The entire thing. As you can see, taking out 40-50 peppers barely dented my pepper bowl. I pick about 10 a day at this point with that number increasing all of the time, so I think I am in trouble. I put the type of onion on the snap lid as well as a number. The number is the heat level, which was actually not determined by the number of peppers or the pepper type. As the water was used and re-used it became loaded with capsicum, so without doing anything at all the batches got hotter and hotter. If I did a fourth batch I could have skipped the peppers and it still would have been fine.
Thanks for having a look, and let me know if you want a jar!
Nice Harvest Stefan. Those pickles look so tasty. I love it. Can't wait to see what kind of sauce you come up with.
Grow on
You wont have to wait long, just posting it
Some friends made comments about the giant jalapenos that I harvested. I wish I could say that I did something fancy with them, but the truth is that they are turned into a nightly nacho dish. It is just chips, cheese, one red jalapeno, and fresh cut scapes from the garden. I use the cayenne hot sauces I've been making as dip for it, which tastes great. Nothing complicated, but simple can still be delicious!
