Hot Peppers, Garden Updates, and other Tidbits ~ Released from Kitchen Captivity

 

I've gotten most of the jalapenos sliced and frozen for the winter/spring season.  I used a few to make another batch of fresh salsa as well.  There are a few more hot peppers to pick yet.

I canned one batch of hot pepper relish, using up the hot banana peppers, two bell peppers and some jalapenos.  I am not getting enough hot banana peppers to make it twice.  I'm okay with that.

We are still enjoying our slicer tomatoes for meals like tacos, breakfast side dish, topped on burgers, or in other meals.  

I will do a re-check on our hot pepper jelly, but I honestly don't feel I will get enough hot peppers over all to can any this season.  The evenings are dipping to the 40's here, so unless we heat up again, the plants won't last much longer. 

We never did get any fall planting done.  Life can throw a wrench in your plans once in a while.

We hope to get back to the chicken coop this week, during evenings.  It's on the top of the list right now.  The floor in the old coop is about to give way.  I had to crawl inside to fetch an egg, that one of the littles laid on the floor of the coop.  The floor is not in good shape right now.

My husband has been battling ear pain, but twice at the doctor, they said they see nothing wrong with him.  The ear pain is slowing down projects, so I am praying it gets better, or he'll have to go get x-rays or something.  He has ear drops, but he cannot sleep well, and days at work are rough with ear pain.

It's a freeing, and exhilarating moment, when you wash, dry and put away the "big pots."  It's even more freeing, when you can put the canner pot back in storage (even if it's for a weeks or months).  I have felt like I have been released from kitchen captivity!!   

Hot Pepper Haul ~ Camping

 It's nearing the end of our garden season.  The rain is arriving here, so I will wait for the garden to dry up before pulling some more plants/stakes.

The hot peppers are doing okay this year, but some did not make it.  Oddly, I got one lonely Anaheim pepper from 3 plants I grew from seed.   I brought in another 15 green bell peppers as well.

It's getting down to the 40's at night this week, which is perfect weather for camping.  Speaking of that, we got our very first camping trip in this year.  It was so nice and relaxing, and the campfire meals were delicious.

One breakfast we made - omelets with garden bell pepper, onion, spinach, bacon and cheese.  The other breakfast contained spinach, feta, bacon, and topped with homemade fresh salsa (made with garden goodies).

We took a walk, played cards, I brought handiwork along, and a book.  On the drive home, I pulled out my knitting project, only to find out that we must have accidently left one knitting needle in the grass by the fire pit.  It must have rolled off my lawn chair and neither of us noticed it.  

As for the cooler weather, it will be much nicer to work on the "Chicken Castle" vs. when it was in the 90's.

Out with a Bang! ~ Paste Tomatoes are Done!

Lemony-Basil Tomato soup (BHG recipe).  One last canning day with paste tomatoes. Next year we plan to grow several types of paste tomatoes.  I have put a towel over my sauce and put sticky notes until the 24 hour period has passed, so I can label before I forget what is what ha ha!

The big pots are being put away, and tables taken down and folded up.  The tomato splatters all washed away, stove top scrubbed down.  It's a hoorah moment today.

It's a good feeling when the tomato season (other than our slicers left to enjoy) has come to an end.  I have been canning daily here for almost 2 weeks, and it will be a fine joy to have a day off today.

As most of you know, when canning season is in full swing, other work suffers inside and outside the homestead.  It will be nice to get some things in order today.  I hope to get my emails read finally too.

Canning season is not over yet.  At least I hope not, as we need hot pepper relish in the pantry.  I most likely will not can hot pepper jelly this year.  I guess we'll see, as some of the kids like it.  It just depends on supply and time.

I took a look-see at the other squash, and I do not see one acorn squash on the acorn squash plants.  Strange, unless the bees were so busy on the zucchini this year, they didn't make it over there??  I will take a closer look after the garden dries out a bit.

The rain that came through here, and even last night, has brought us a welcomed cooler weather.

One last note:  I asked my husband to pick me up a few pounds of ground pork from a local butcher.  He didn't.  He went to the store and got 2 pounds of grocery store "country" sausage.  Read the labels, and this is why I make my own breakfast sausage.  It contained "corn syrup" as the 3rd ingredient.  No wonder some people are diabetic and have other health issues.  Just an FYI.  You'd never think, corn syrup would be in sausage.  They often use a sweetener in store breakfast sausages and roll sausages.

Cabbage Lasagna ~ New Recipe Tried ~ Sauce Maker Issues and other Tidbits

 

Although not the typical dinner for such hot weather, I tried a new recipe.  I had thawed the meat, and had the cabbage, so it was made.  It was delicious!  It was some work, but instead of boiling the cabbage first, I am told you can freeze your cabbage and thaw it, and it will be soft and pliable.  Is this true?

Either way, we did not miss the pasta.  I used home canned tomato sauce (herbed) in place of Marinara sauce.  It was very good, and of course perfect for my husband's health (and mine).  I will be making this again.  Recipe is from Sugar free Mom online.

 I'm still canning.  I canned another half batch of tomato sauce yesterday.  See that white bowl in the upper left?  My husband dropped it and broke part of the pour spout off, and the handle is cracked about 2 inches downward.  The smaller matching bowl was also broken.

I went to look up the price of another set of these, and they are now $109.00 for the set of 3!!  Crazy!!  I will be looking for other options. 

The one on the left is the original, the one on the right was the replacement a year ago.  The bottom gasket for it, where it goes into the inside of the sauce maker, and where the handle goes in from the outside, has been out of stock.  I have to wrap a towel around the base to collect all the liquid that drips out during the process when I crank the handle on the sauce maker.

The replacement for these are up to $22.00.  I found one similar to it on Amazon (saving me $7.00), that is made for a different brand of sauce maker, and it works.  It's slightly smaller, but it works, and hopefully will keep working until this canning season is done this year.

In the midst of looking for something, I found this box that was packed up during the kitchen renovations.  Daughter K made it for me.  I am keeping my leftover bits of cotton yarn in it, along with a crochet hook.  I can now work on small scrap projects while watching the canner pot.

We had some thunderstorms come in yesterday, but it was still very hot and humid.   They say it will cool down now, and I am looking forward to that.

New Recipe ~ Heat Index ~ Jalapenos

 

I made the black bean salad suggested, and ended up adding one more jalapeno (with seeds) to it for some flavor (a small one).  Pretty good.  I got to try out my new tool too.  It's for removing the hair off the corn without damaging any corn.

As for the recipe, it makes way too much for us.  We will be eating it for breakfast burritos, nachos, daily snack, etc.  Goodness it makes a lot.  

The heat last week was almost unbearable, and yesterday we hit a high 98 degree heat index.  It's been extremely humid as well.

I took the day off from tomatoes and picked jalapenos.  One batch of Cowboy Candy was made.  It's a good time to save seeds ha ha!  That's a lot of slicing.  I brought in about 4#.

What I call garden dump breakfast.  I made a casserole.  The squash is completely done, but I have not pulled the plants yet.  It's too hot out there.  The bees have cross pollinated the plants and the yellow squash is now producing half yellow and half zucchini.  I will get them yanked, but we are enjoying a few last yellow squash.

I'm moving rather slow this morning.  I tripped and fell over a suit case we had not put away. I'm always good at putting it away right after we get back, but not this last time.  I've been so busy, I have been too tired at the end of the day to get that job done.

Good gravy I am sore.  Maybe it's a sign I need to pack up and take a trip, and ignore all  the tomatoes I brought in.

Speaking of travel, I have a prayer request.  I typically post these on Monday's Happy Homemaker post, but we have a very close friend (Aaron) to my husband that will be driving over several states to see is daughter right now.  He and she, could use prayers.  His adult daughter is in ICU with an unexplained brain bleed, and they are unable to do surgery right now.  Her name is Cheyenne.  

Coasters (Scrap Yarn Project) ~ Garden

 

Here is a close up of the zig zag coasters.  I love the edging.  I didn't realize it, but it's basically, almost the same pattern as the facial scrubbies, only a different edging.  So....I learned a new edging this year.  I found the pattern on Youtube.  These are my current on-the-go travel project, to use up small scraps of cotton yarn.  

Monday was a holiday, so I was able to enjoy the day with my husband home.  The potluck day put me behind with everything, from housework, to the garden to canning.  I finally got the latest canning labeled and put away.

First thing, I checked the garden.  We are in a dry spell right now, so I am trying to decide if we have enough "sauce" related items canned, and if we can yank the paste tomato plants.  I still have some in the house to can yet too.

Has anyone grown a hot pepper plant, or bell pepper plant inside over winter?  

  

Broken Waste Funnel ~ BBQ Sauce ~ Bell Peppers ~ Tidbits

Here is a photo of the waste funnel that goes to my food strainer/sauce maker.  There are 3 plastic tabs that secure it onto the metal strainer.  One tab broke off.  It has happened before, and I have talked to my husband about upgrading to a metal food strainer.  I have now figured out how I broke it off too.  If you are not careful when you slide the  the piece on, that is the splash guard/strainer, it will brake those tabs off.

The white tray that drains it off into your pot is what I am talking about.  Now my gasket has gone bad that is inside the metal stand part of it, and where you insert the handle to hand crank it.  Juice from the tomatoes now seeps out, so when I crank I have to wrap a towel around the base.  I could not replace the funnel for a year, as it was out of stock, and now the gaskets are out of stock.  With the amount of paste tomatoes we grow, and the amount of sauce making I do, I think an all metal food strainer/sauce maker is going to the top of our wish list.

I am making it work for the season.  I have to hold the funnel, so that the waste does not fall into the sauce pot.

BBQ sauce was canned  (day 7 of "sauce" canning).  We have been super blessed with paste tomatoes this year, but it is exhausting, and heats up the house.  I have been running a dehumidifier this year, to help with the humidity created from the sauce reducing all day.

I have finally caught up with bell peppers, and we are thankful for all that we are getting this year.  Most of the peppers went into the freezer, but we are still enjoying them with our meals.  I made more breakfast stuffed bell peppers and gave some to one of the kids.  They are so good.

Some of the produce we grow is needed ingredients for recipes I can too.  I have a growing list of new items to grow next year, crossing my fingers we get raised beds built.  I did not grow greens, due to the busy spring (husband had crazy work hours), so I have to find local greens and have a day of putting them up for winter.  

Update on the potluck . . . we ended up taking watermelon.  What happened?  Well, we went to Wal-mart to find me some summer slacks to wear to it, and because they renovated and moved everything around, it took us forever to shop and we were late to the gathering.

There were so many high carb sides served, so we ate at home afterwards.  They had lots of chips and dips, pasta sides, creamed corn (starch that we limit), and lots and lots of sweet desserts (so I'm glad we too the fruit).

As for the "slacks" I came home with 3 pairs, and ended up wearing a pair I had in the closet.  Not one of the ones I brought home fit well.  I am tall, and now losing some inches off of me, so it's been hard to find the right fit.  Anyway, I have to return them all now.  At least the return station is in the same place in the store (ha ha!).  

Oh, also, we ran all over tarnation to look for a farmstand with cherry tomatoes.  Not one had them.  I'm planting about 3-4 of those plants next year.