Yesterday, Bill and the older kids went to the garden and brought back some of the bounty that resided there. It was all washed and dried and put in heaps (see yesterday's picture) and then we went to bed.
Today was a day to deal with that which needed to be pickled. Starting with the peppers. We had three types of peppers to pickle. A banana variety called Hot Spot, our regular Crimson Hots, and Jalapeño.
Here are the banana peppers. Aren't they just a thing of beauty? The pile beside the big bowl is some of the crimson hots. So sexy with their shiny red skins and nice broad shoulders. Mmmmm.
Also on the list was bread and butter pickles, and dills. All together today's pickle production was 40 jars. My mother in law called earlier and when she found out what I was doing, said that I sounded like a pickle factory.
I feel like a pickle factory. I'm tired like one too. And to think that I now am looking forward to a week of work, followed by, most likely, more pickling next weekend. The garden is still producing an amazing amount and frost is nowhere to be seen. Coupled with the heavy rain that Hannah dumped on us over night and today, and I see more veggies in my future. Oh my.
6 comments:
The photos just don't do them justice, really. They look so much better in real life. The colours are so lovely.
I think this is the first time I ever cut up so many hot peppers and didn't end up with stinging fingers. It's usually hard to avoid.
And if you're Flick, does that mean I'm Dot? Or Atta? Not sure where I fit in the cast now.
(*snicker* Poor Mira's Papa. Not a lot of choices, are there??)
Do you s'pose it means something that the garden is still going? Like, a really hard winter? Wasn't that always the way it happened in the Little House books?
My Oh MY!... All those pickles!... There are 52 weeks in a year and 365 days divided by 2 grown ants and 4 growing ants and the occasional visiting ants and uncles. Anyway, I am lost in the math.
In any case it is a lovely picture but you may needs some more shelves pretty soon if the trend continues.
It looks like the weeds did not get much of a chance to crowd your veggies this year and you still got a big bounty despite feeding a family of ants, deers and a groundhog all summer. I guess that is why we have Thanksgiving day.
Mamoo
Hey - I think it's reasonable to go through a jar of pickles in a day, no problem! ;)
They look so wonderful! I am so envious of your garden!
@ Davimack
Our children can demolish a litre of diil pickles in less than an hour. Seen it done dozens of times. And that's not just the pickles. They eat the cloves of garlic, then they dig out the stalks of dill weed and eat the seeds off of the end. Then they drain the liquid and eat the pepper corns. Before we stopped him, Simon had attempted on a few occasions to drink the brine. A bottle of pickles doesn't have a chance. You'd think we never fed them.
In the last year their appetites have increased a lot. Liam, in particular, is eating two or three times what he did a year ago. He's always claiming that he's hungry. Even 15 minutes after dinner. It's frightening. If he gets involved in sports, we're in trouble.
This time of year is what the kids call "tomato heaven". Lots of great tomato things to eat. Fresh, uncooked salsa, bruschetta, marinated tomatoes Teurel, uncooked sauce for fettuccine, pasta salad with lots of tomato and peppers, and of course the ever present tomato sandwich. And the "sun dried" tomatoes are even fair game as a tasty snack. You can't have too many tomatoes. Well, maybe you can. We did last year. But the blight was bad this year, so the crop is rather small in comparison.
You know, I can sympathize with going through a whole jar of pickles - even with eating the spices! We used to love pickled onions, packed into a toasted cheese sandwich. We only made a few jars, and only one year, and those jars went in about a week. Sad, sad. :)
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