Catch Up

My parents are on their way back to Minnesota today, and I'm back!  We had a good visit, but it rained EVERY DAY!  We are on our 6th or 7th day straight of rain, heat and humidity and I am so ready for fall.  I still have not planted the fall garden and the lawn is about 8 inches high, soggy, mushrooms sprouting all over, yuck!  During a few hour break in the rain mom helped me bring peppers in, I thought the end must be near, but I still have a lot out there ripening.  We did bring in quite a bunch the other day that needed to be frozen and/or canned.  All of the bell peppers were frozen, the Anchos hung to dry, and the jalapenos were canned.

I was lazy and raw packed them into rings instead of scorching and peeling since there were so many.  I got 7 pints of jalapenos to add to the rest of the stash in the pantry.  The verdict this year is that 3 plants is just not quite enough, so I'll plant 4 from now on.  If you remember, 9 plants was way too many, I was harvesting about 100 a week, 6 plants was still a bit of an overload last year so I dropped it to 3.  Yes, we eat a LOT of jalapenos, probably 2 pints a month LOL.  3 years later, I think I have it dialed in finally.  

We pulled the plants, so this brings the total of jalapenos for 2011 to 10 lbs, I think 15 would be about perfect, and of that I squirreled away 11 pints and 4 half-pint jars for the year.

Of course, we had to use up some of the bell peppers fresh! 

everyone knows of my favorite dish for the garden, stir fry

Mom also has finally decided I'm worthy of some family photos!  Really nice ones that I had never seen before, like this gem:

Isn't that cool?  That's dad on the right.  I also had him list a string of cars he owned starting with his first one, and wow - that's a fun list!  Needless to say, I have some good material to get me started on my next project - wait for it - 

- I have decided to (gasp) start scrapbooking, you know, in all my spare time :)  Yet another hobby I used to laugh at and say I would never do...what's happening to me?!  I also got filled in on a lot of family history I didn't know about, and random fun facts about the family and my parents specifically.  Of course it would be great if mom would pen a history for me but I'll settle for dumping boxes of "stuff" on my desk to sort through myself LOL :)  Hopefully one day I'll have some nice things put together for our family and my brothers' families to share, with actual captions so we know what the heck we're looking at.

Honest, someday soon I really will be planting my fall garden, but it has to stop raining first!  Next up I'll post about our annual air show fun, not interesting to everyone I realize, but it's our livelihood LOL...

I have gotten back into knitting the past week and have sorted through my seeds for fall, so I'm slowly making the change to the new season....

I'm really not trying to be anti-social...

...but I can't help it, I'm drowning in peppers and haven't had time to blog!  The temps are now down to the mid-upper 80's which is divine compared to the past 6 weeks.  I had dreams of tackling the garden head-on yesterday and getting a whole lot of neglected chores done, but as I walked out into the pepper beds I realized I was going to be stuck in the kitchen all day despite the relatively cool temps outside.

Despite the horrifying state the tomato plants are in, they continue to ripen.  I think the saucing days are over now, but still getting enough to make stewed tomatoes or salsa.

Upon seeing how many peppers were on these plants, I decided to pick them all and get rid of the plants for the year.  Below are the Sigaretta di bergamo peppers, I will not be growing these again since they are sweet peppers and are pretty to look at, but small and thin and really a pain to process for long term keeping, just too labor intensive for seeding and freezing.

Below are the Sigaretta di bergamo and Pepperoncini plants that got tossed.  There were only a few new blooms and quite frankly, I have enough of them!

The end result - madness!  Several pounds of pepperoncini and sweet peppers came out of that little planter box - I had 2 of the Pepperoncini plants on the left side, and 3 of the sweet Sigaretta di bergamo plants on the right side.  You definitely don't need much space for peppers.

I still have other pepper plants that I will continue to let go until they decide to stop.  The center garden contains Poblanos that are just starting to ripen, my regular size Quadrato di Asti bell peppers, and jalapeno and fish hot peppers.  Actually, I'll probably rip out the fish hot peppers soon, as I already have several strings of them drying in the kitchen.

Below, clockwise from the top position:  Sigaretta di bergamo sweet, Poblano (Ancho), Quadrato di Asti Rosso bells, Jimmy Nardello Sweet Frying Pepper, Pepperoncini, Fish Hot pepper, Mini Stuffing bells.

After a long days' work...

Pickled Pepperoncini Rings and Sweet Pepper & Onion Relish, bring on the Panini Sandwiches this winter!

Still haven't started in on the tomatoes on the counter, I'm a little upset that it appears that we have another day today of nice temps and I'll be stuck inside doing those as well as squeezing blood out of turnips - that is - paying bills :)  At least hubby is off today and he is outside right now getting started on some of the chores that have been neglected in the past 6 weeks of torture chamber temps.  I'm actually getting a bit excited to rip out the summer garden, but I need to keep on preserving what is still coming in.  I know I'll be glad I did come winter!  

Scenes from Sunday...

While the cat's away...

The mouse will work!

No?  That's not how that rhyme goes?  My kitchen says otherwise.

Maybe I should learn how to high pressure aerosol can this stuff LOL... nah, my neighborhood isn't that bad... 

What was the weight limit on glass top ranges again?  I seem to have misplaced that manual, LOL

  

It's a lovely day out there, heat index of 105º, hot breeze blowing.... how 'bout you?  I will need medication to live here much longer!

What a relaxing Sewing Day!

Yeah, right!

Yesterday morning started off hot, and not just the weather!

Before you say it - I only planted THREE jalapeno plants this year, honest!  Thank you all for reminding me not to go overboard yet again :)

First I finished up the last of the big tomato days with a batch of stewed tomatoes.  This will be the end of the tomato canning for awhile, as it is too hot now for the plants to set fruit very well.

One thing led to another and...

This evolution took 2 days instead of the one I had hoped for, but I have lots of goodies to squirrel away.  I did it all the past 2 days, pressure canning, steam canning as well as refrigerator pickling and oil marinating.  For those that don't know, the pressure canner can be used as a steam canner also, a real multi - purpose piece of equipment.

Ever been so busy preparing real, homegrown, healthy food that you are too busy to "cook dinner"?  I find that's a frequent problem here.  I'm up to my neck in fresh food yet my kid gets this for dinner when I'm faced with the "I'm hungry, when's dinner?" question!

  

By this afternoon, I had squirreled away 2.5 quarts of stewed tomatoes, 2.5 pints salsa, 2 pints of mixed veggie pickles, 3 pints of pickled pepperoncini, 9 little 4 oz jars of pickled jalapenos, 2.5 pints of marinated roasted sweet peppers, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Because I'm always interested in what goes into other people's jars, I thought you might be interested in mine - or not :)  (the ingredients in my jars such as herbs and spices always change according to what I have though) 

Pickled Jalapenos

These are just a plain water/vinegar liquid, as the spice in there is quite enough!  This time I sliced them into rings since it's easier than scorching and peeling.  Sometimes it's just got to be easy.

Stewed Tomatoes

This batch was a mixture of Brandywine and Hillbilly heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, oregano & garlic.  I actually prefer to stew most of my tomatoes instead of saucing them, since we only rarely eat spaghetti type pasta sauce, but I can always find somewhere to throw in stewed tomatoes - chili, baked chicken, stews, etc.  If I do want sauce I can run a stick blender through it when I'm preparing a recipe, but you can't go backwards :)  Plus, it's easier and faster!

 Pickled Pepperoncini

In the interest of not canning next week when we are having my sister and brother in law visiting, I picked the pepperoncini while still green and tried to empty the plants as much as possible.  These were simple refrigerator pickles.  I make slits in the pepperoncini, soak overnight in the fridge in a vinegar solution with a lid as a weight so the raw peppers will "give up their air" a bit so they won't float in the jar when I pickle them the next day.  When I packed them, I added a vinegar solution, some pepper flakes and mustard seed.

Mixed Vegetable Refrigerator Pickles

Although I mixed veggies since my cukes are not producing very much this year, I also prefer to always have a few other things in there for flavor and "prettiness" as well.  These are a mixture of Japanese Climbing and Parisian Pickling Cucumbers, a few miniature bell peppers, and a few Fish Hot peppers, dill, garlic, mustard seed and red pepper flakes in a vinegar solution with grape leaves on the jar bottoms.  These keep a good long while in the fridge, so it's what I usually do with cukes, as I like them crisp.  I also like hot spicy pickles, so while the variety of peppers added may change the flavor a bit, there will always be hot peppers in my pickles!

Marinated Roasted Sweet Peppers

You can pressure can these, but they tend to get overcooked and mushy, so I did a refrigerator version again.  You can pack them in straight oil, but they will only keep 3-4 days that way, if you pack them in a vinegar/oil mix they will keep several weeks.  This day I roasted some stray Jimmy Nardello Frying peppers, Quadrato diAsti red/green bells and Sigaretta di bergamo sweet red peppers, peeled, then packed into jars with garlic cloves & oregano then filled with a vinegar/olive oil mixture.

Below is what they look like in the oil mixture - these are great for throwing on top most anything, great in pasta, on bratwurst or on sliced crusty bread dipped in some of the flavored oil.

After the past month, I found myself almost out of jars!  Bad for the bank account, but good for the pantry.  After pretty much ignoring my children for the past 2 days that I disappeared into the kitchen, I came out and announced that I was taking them for a lovely drive out in the 105 degree heat for...

Check out the size of that jar!  I've been wanting a few of those half-gallon jars for awhile :)

Hey, at least I stopped and bought them an ice cream on the way home!

After dinner tonight, I cleaned up all of my messes and informed the kids that I wanted to play a game with them.  After 48 hours of being left to their own devices, I think they were shocked!  :)

Problem is, they are both setting up a different game!  I'll be busy for awhile.

and oh, yeah, I baked 2 pretty crappy loaves of bread - I took 2 weeks off of my bread baking adventure, and it shows :(

What's YOUR Mess?

With daily downpours, thunderstorms and high winds taking their toll on the tomatoes, I'm wasting no time in putting up all I can while I can, I have no idea how long they will keep going out there, but I fear I won't be canning "excess" tomatoes in September like usual.  The cucumbers were staggered plantings, so I'm only getting a handful at a time, perfect for refrigerator pickles.  Refrigerator pickles last a year, so there is no need can those here.  I would if I had a huge amount to worry about, but since nutritionally they are just fluff LOL, I save the pantry space for more healthful veggies.  I figure if the power goes out and the fridge goes down, well, it was just pickles in there :)

Japanese Climbing Cucumber

Dilly Jar O'Fun - this jar has a few beans and peppers as well as Japanese Climbing Cukes and Parisian Pickling Cucumbers, fresh dill, peppercorn, garlic and fresh grape leaves on the bottom for crispness.  You never know what you might grab when you stick your hand in the jar!

I've been keeping a "largest Brandywine tracker" on my sidebar this year, and yesterday's took the prize, this one is bigger by several ounces than the "bigger than my head" photo of a few weeks ago - this one came in at 1.89 lbs!  

You know, cooking and canning all day is really boring for children.  I'm noticing that the noise and naughtiness levels rise in accordance with how long and involved my particular tasks are. I couldn't think straight at all with the constant clomping that was going on all day yesterday... Finnegan decided he would wear daddy's "Heelys" all day long, ugh!  School can start any time now...

That brings me to my tomato sauce - ever get sick of looking at nice luscious ripe tomatoes and pretty things like this in gardener's posts?  (Thomas, do you hear me?!) You are thinking, wow!  She's so "together"... come ON, we all know it's not always as it seems in photos...

I have a challenge for you -  Post what's not in the photo!  Yep, I want to see your garbage bowls, arms covered in pulp, goggles and gloves when peeling those hot peppers, juice spattered on the dog, walls, sink full of unwashed dishes, you know the drill!  (Remember the refrigerator challenge from last year?)

Here's my "rest of the story" for yesterday :)

So what are you currently putting up?  What's your mess? 

How we spent the holiday

We were lucky enough to have hubby join us after all!  He was off the afternoon, so we went to the pool, as the car was reading 101º, yuck!

I scored a table with an umbrella and had some great reading material with me -

Not to be outdone by Loch's "deep end" pool video, Finnegan insisted that I also film him on his first venture into the deep end.  After getting the okay from the lifeguard, off he went!  I know his swimming looks rough, but there's only one way to get better, by doing it!  Also, hubby is underwater near him to make sure he makes it, LOL.  

Poor hubby, works 8 days in a row, 12 hours a day, and we take him right back there for "fun".  LOL, this is the view from the pool...

Hubby can't seem to get away from the jets, but the "free" in the base "free pool" shouts louder :)

Any guesses as to what this is in the photo below?  You win nothing for a correct answer other than my admiration for knowing :), I'll fill you in later if nobody guesses correctly!

Made a few yummies yesterday...

I made my potato salad with onions, bleu cheese, bacon & balsamic dressing,

along with the last of the bean harvest to go with our grilled veggie burgers.  There are more beans planted but it will be a few weeks until they start producing.  These were from the plants I had to pull since they were crowding my peppers.

Big harvest day yesterday...

I spent the evening canning pickled sweet peppers, pepperoncini, and jalapenos.

What, no fireworks?  Nope - I lucked out there.  I didn't want to deal with the crowds of tourists at the beach and worried about being a "bad mom" for not going, but turns out I didn't have to... Mother Nature saw fit to cancel all the city displays and put on her own show of lightning, thunder and rain.

I'm elbow deep in squeezing tomatoes today, hoping to make a decent amount of tomato sauce.  Have I said lately how much I love my new canner?  :)