The last to go was the peppers.
One of the things that I do with the smaller peppers is make what I call "pepper cookies". I'm sure you all know of the frozen cookies that come in a roll and when you want to make them, you haul them out of the freezer hack off a few and chuck them in the oven. I make rolls of peppers that are the same concept. First they get chopped in the food processor and laid out on wax paper.
Then they are rolled into a cylinder with the ends tucked in to try and prevent spillage.
Then the tray gets put in the freezer and when solid, put in a ziplock bag. Any time that I want to use some hot peppers in soup, sauce, chili, whatever, I just hack some off and drop it in. It slices surprisingly easy for something that is frozen.
And now a note from Bill......
The Ants are Done
Well, Flick and Atta were at it again this weekend. The last of the pickling is over for the year, and I'm glad to see the end of it.
And I think we surpassed last year's count by a wide margin. Here's the tally for the season's efforts.
Pickles
Beets 6 jars
Dill 105 jars
Bread & Butter 22 jars
Lady Ashburnham 39 jars
Jalapeño Peppers 21 jars
Banana Peppers 41 jars
Salsa 5 jars
Green Tomato Relish 7 jars
Jams
Blueberry 8 jars
Elderberry 16 jars
Strawberry 11 jars
Carrot Cake 12 jars
Peach 5 jars
The grand total is 298 jars. Those are the ones that "snapped". There were a few that didn't snap properly after processing and they were consigned to the fridge and eaten straight away, so the "real" total would be over 300. And we will run out of some of these things rather quickly, especially the peach, blueberry and strawberry jams. Next year we'll be more organized and it's likely to climb even higher as more fruit jams get added to the mix.
And this says nothing of the sun dried tomatoes and sauce we made and are making still. We have about 6 one-litre jars of sun dried tomatoes, and a bit of well reduced seedless tomato sauce, and I think we'll have to make more of the sauce because there are still two big boxes of tomatoes ripening in the kitchen. There are some other vegetables too, but more of them are eaten fresh.
It's a big effort to put all of this food down, but it does taste good in the winter. Especially the banana pepper rings. The commercial ones aren't cored so you get lots of slices with hard bits of stem and core in them. We core ours. I think they put pectinase in theirs too, because our juice is viscous while theirs is watery. We use every drop of our pepper juice as marinade for chicken, which gives it a wonderful flavour, especially when barbecued.
7 comments:
Forgot to mention one other thing I made this weekend. Sun-dried tomato olive oil. The tomatoes have to be bone dry for this to work, and they were crispy, for sure. So I put about 30 or so all crunched up in the spice mill on the food processor, then buzzed them to a find powder. This was poured into an empty bottle that originally had vinegar in it (so it has a decent spout). Then olive oil was poured in over it. After that you shake it up and leave it for a month or so. The tomato taste infuses and you get this lovely red olive oil with an SDT taste. Superb for salad dressings.
And finally, there is now a big pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the kitchen stove. And it smells pretty good.
You remind me of myself when I was younger and had four kids to feed, myself and my husband and a farm hand or two to feed. I remember once making 125 jars of strawberry jam just because there there was a lots of strawberries around. When I realized how much sugar was in the jam I gave a lot of it to my family members.
I know that it was difficult for you to put the brakes on this year but I have a question. You don't have to answer if it puts your stash of pickles in jeopardy but I would like to know where did you find room to store all your many jars of pickles and preserves?
Mamoo
Oh! I forgot to mention that I love the idea of frozen pepper roll for soup , sauce and chili. You are so creative.
I freeze my ginger roots and use a sharp chef's knife to shave what I need and put it back in the freezer in a freezer bag and I never loose my ginger anymore. I use a lot of it when I make stir fries with chicken meat in it.
Mamoo
Love it. You certainly deserve a round of applause. (or two) I would love to see a photo of your pantry.. heh heh. that was always my favorite part of doing all that work, to line them up and just admire their beauty!
So all those hot peppers look divine - but do you really use them all over the winter? and are you willing to share recipes?
The Pepper Cookie Roll is a fantastic Idea. :)
Did you freeze any of your Crimson hots this year?
A truly awesome gardening / canning year! Yay for the ants!
Holy snappers!! You guys have certainly been busy :)
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