Harvest Time

If the recent days of rain and chilly temperatures wasn't reminder enough that autumn is nearly here, then the piles of vegetables from our garden drove home the point. Tomatoes have been canned, the onions have been eaten, but we've got more peppers than you can shake a stick at. Jalapenos, cayennes, large cayennes, pablano – seemingly every type of pepper grew in our garden this year. Some have been thrown into dinner or made into pico de gallo. But others are sitting in my basement in jars. I made some cayenne pepper hot sauce for the first time in a couple years. For some reason the cayenne plants didn't produce a whole lot of fruit this year. I find this very odd considering the very hot weather we had this summer. Mother Nature is very fickle. So, while I didn't end up with the usual tons and tons of cayennes, there was enough for hot sauce.



After boiling the peppas in vinegar and salt, I threw the whole nine yards into a food processor with some garlic and some bourbon.



I ended up with two half-pint jars.



They are now in the basement aging away. The last time I made the stuff, I found that it took 10-12 months for the marriage of the flavors to be consummated. Prior to that, it tasted like peppas and vinegar. Afterwards you could taste the bourbon and the garlic along with the rest of the ingredients.

I also made jalapeno jam. The first thing you do is chop up some peppers and mince them.





Then the mash was boiled along with some apple cider vinegar and lots of sugar.



WARNING! If you do this at home, have your exhaust fan running on high because this (as well as boiling cayennes in vinegar) emits a toxic fume. Ignore your urge to lean over and take a whiff. If you do it anyway, it'll clear your sinuses and get the tears running. Anyway, once it had boiled for a while, I added pectin, boiled some more, and then threw the stuff in jars. They were processed for about 5 minutes.





I ended up with a few pints of the stuff.



Now, the root cellar is stocked. I hope to have some time one of these weekends to make a load of pasta for the coming months. I've got about a million pounds of seminola flour that needs to be dealt with. Now that I look, I see that I've only got one bottle of mead left. How can I get through a harsh winter with only one?