Finally Harvesting From The Garden

/ TaMara / Leave a comment

Despite an early start to all my seedlings this spring, harvest is late this year. Finally pulling enough tomatoes to do something besides adding them to salads and making my favorite Cucumber Tomato Salad. And a handful of jalapenos were ready this morning.

Every year there must be salsa, and this year I added some dried Mexican Oregano to mimic our favorite restaurant’s salsa. It definitely took my usual recipe up a notch.

I’m still waiting for my tomatillos to be ready for a nice salsa verde.

Peaches have been perfect this year, so Peach Salsa and Peach Chutney are on the menu.

Fresh salsa on the right and pickled jalapenos on the left.

Fresh and Easy Salsa

  • 4 tomatoes, quartered
  • 6 green onions
  • 2 tsp crushed garlic
  • ½ to 1 bunch cilantro, remove stems
  • 2 to 4 jalapenos*, remove stems
  • 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • dash of lime juice
  • 1/2 tsp Mexican oregano

blender or food processor

In blender or food processor, add all ingredients and coarsely chop until blended well**.  If you can make a day ahead, it gets even better.  Seal in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to a week.

*depending on the heat you like, if you prefer milder, you can substitute green chilis, which are also in season right now. I’m roasting some tonight to freeze.

**If you prefer a chunkier style salsa, you’d be better off chopping vegetables by hand.

=======================

I’m bummed about the late harvest, but I’ve had a very busy few weeks, so I guess it’s a good thing. I’ll have to start freezing tomato sauce by the weekend.  How do things look in your garden?

 

Sausage and Eggs

/ jeffreyw / Leave a comment

I sent that video of the three large bucks to the guy that deer hunts on me, he dropped off some sausage that he made as thanks. This one was labeled mushroom swiss. I cut it into small pieces prior to cooking, that was a small mistake. The bits of cheese thus exposed melted and stuck to the pan. There is a little bit left of that batch, I’ll cook it before cutting. He sent two batches of sausage, the next has onions and sweet peppers. I’m looking forward to that.

Baked Chicken and Potatoes

/ jeffreyw / Leave a comment

I like before and after photos but I must admit that when I got this to the table I just dove right into the eating and forgot to get an “as plated” pic. Senile old coot. Those red peppers are this year’s shishito peppers. Last year they were all very hot, this year none of them were, at least so far. They added nothing but color. I did eat them, they were blackened nicely but the flesh is thin. They should dry nicely for grinding into a tame pepper flake for garnishes.

Sweet Pickled Jalapenos

/ jeffreyw / Leave a comment

There are many candied jalapeno recipes out there but my usual practice is to use half the sugar the recipes call for, and half of that I sub a granulated sweetener like Splenda. (If a recipe calls for 6 cups of sugar, I use 1-1/2 c sugar and 1-1/2 c sweetener.) I am not after sticky sweet pickles. There are a few serrano peppers in with this last batch to give them more bite.