jalapenos

Summer Harvest Continues

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

How do I manage, every year, to grow jalapenos that break the Scoville scale? 🌶️🔥

Once again, I roasted the first batch to try and bring down the heat before I canned them. It wasn’t all that successful, but they do taste good.  Simple recipe of pureed jalapenos, apple cider vinegar (or white vinegar), dash of salt. Great on burgers, in soups, or anywhere you’d use fresh or pickled jalapenos.

Again, I don’t do traditional canning. I do freezer canning.  I sterilize the freezer-safe canning jars, fill with the jalapeno relish, cover, but don’t tighten until cooled. Leave room in the jar for expansion and freeze for up to a year.

I was hoping the hail hadn’t damaged my tomatoes, but as they ripen, I’m seeing they all have bruising. Shouldn’t affect the ones I puree, but makes the sliced ones a little mushy.

I was on a kick to use up excess seeds I had lying around the pantry and decided I’d plant the corn I had stored in a plastic bag. Only about half germinated, and they grew little mini-stalks, which in turn produced mini-ears. They look edible, and I’ll cook one up and see. Otherwise, I’ll see if the ducks will eat them.

They are cute, I’ll say that.

Finally Harvesting From The Garden

/ TaMara / 1 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.

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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?

 

Garden Bounty: Bring On The Heat

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

The garden is finally starting to release its bounty. But those jalapenos? I cannot believe how hot they are. I cut into one, planning on adding it to my Cucumber-Tomato Salad (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow) and the fumes about knocked me over. I actually removed the seeds and ribs – something I rarely do, because I love spicy –  and it was still muy caliente!

It’s been a slow start, but I think we are getting into peak harvest. I’m off to buy some Palisade Peaches – I have some great recipes for peach season that we will revisit.

Until then…

x-posted at Annie Demoranville

Dinner Menu: Spicy Lime Cilantro Chicken w/Mexican Rice

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

It’s been unseasonably warm here after our early snow in September, so grilling is on the menu.

On the board:

  1. Spicy Lime Cilantro Chicken
  2. Mexican Rice Medley
  3. Green Beans
  4. Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe here)

Spicy Lime Cilantro Chicken:

  • 4 boneless chicken breasts
  • ½ cup lime juice
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro
  • ¼ cup sliced pickled jalapenos and juice

 Place ingredients in a zip-lock bag and marinate 1 hour or overnight.  Broil or grill for 15 minutes, turning every 5 minutes, until breasts are cooked to 165 degrees. Continue reading →

Saturday Sammich Pr0n

/ jeffreyw

We were all out of smoked pork from the last time I did a pork shoulder.  We bought another Boston butt for another batch put I didn’t want to fire up the smoker so I put it into the new-ish oven, set the temp to 200, and let it go.  When I went to check on it in the morning I found that the oven had shut itself off during the night,  A quick check online told me that it shuts itself off after 12 hours, so it quit on me circa 3am.  Bummer.  I checked the internal temp and it was only 115° so I cranked it to 350° to finish.

I wanted to disable the 12-hr auto shut off and that led me on quite the wild goose chase.  Check the user manual, they said, you’ll find the instructions for that.  Uh… nope.  I did reacquaint myself with the special features menu and managed to find it in there.  The controls are not at all intuitive but with a close read of the manual and at least four tries I got-er-done.

Tomatoes with Green Chilies

/ jeffreyw

We are down to one tomato bush, it had a dozen or so ripe tomatoes when I looked yesterday, and there were enough poblanos to make it worth roasting them for a nice rotel copycat recipe.   I chopped several small sweet onions, the roasted green chilies, and a couple of jalapenos and added them to the tomatoes to simmer for a while.  I had enough for six pints.  This stuff is great for chili or mixing in with cheese for a nice dip.  There are a bazillion recipes for soups that include it – just plug rotel and soup into your search engine, rev it up, and pop the clutch.