Trust your instincts

Because when you don't this is what happens

I've had about 3 lbs of hot peppers in the freezer since last summer.  

My gardening buddy grows hot peppers and he was away most of last summer so I harvested them.  The past couple of years, I have made a kind of hot sauce but I wanted to do something different this year.  I found a recipe for a kind of hot pepper condiment that looked good.  So today was the day.  The peppers sat in the fridge overnight to defrost.

Sean was a trooper and cut the stems off, then put them in the blender/food processor to grind fine.

We opened the kitchen door, put on gloves and a mask and the smell was not too bad.  The paste looked pretty good too.

We put the peppers in jars, added some salt and covered with heated white vinegar.

Here is where I did not listen to myself.  There jars came out of the boiling water hot, the vinegar was hot yet when I touched the jars to screw on the lids, the jars were stone cold.  Huh?  I said why are these jars cold and Sean answered, well the peppers were half frozen.  I'm thinking to myself, ok, if I put cold jars back into the hot boiling water, they are going to break.  So what did I do? I put the cold jars into the hot water and THEY BROKE!  Well, 2 out of the 4 jars broke and let me tell you, the vapors from two broken jars of hot peppers drove Sean and I outside.

Stupid, stupid stupid. I should have taken the time to start over and heat up the pepper mixture and then repack the jars.

2 jars survived, plus a half filled one that I didn't process.  Lesson learned.

Preserving in the winter

It was time to do something about the two gallon bags of hot peppers in the freezer.  That and my last jar of hot sauce was all gone so it was time to make Red Hot Sauce from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.  I made this same sauce last year and it came out pretty tasty.

I took out two bags of plum tomatoes from the freezer and thawed over night.  Once they were chopped, it was apparent that there wasn't going to be enough tomatoes so I dug into the back of the freezer and found the last bag of plum tomatoes.  In years past, farmer Allan has given me buckets of tomato seconds but this year he didn't have a very good crop of tomatoes - as a result, there are no more tomatoes in the freezer.

Mixed batch of hot peppers

Thawed tomatoes

The chopped seeded peppers and tomatoes (not seeded) were combined with white vinegar and simmered until soft.  Puree with hand blender, then combined with spices and sugar and more vinegar, simmer for awhile until right consistency.

Ready to go into the canner

Next day - this sauce is HOT.  There was some leftover that I just put into the fridge and hoo wee.  It's hot.

There is still a bag of peppers left so I'm going to dehydrate the rest.

This morning I went to the local farmer's market and bought a couple of organic grapefruit from FL.  I used the fruit in a salad and as I was about to put the rinds down the garbage disposal, I thought about candied peel.  I've never done it but thought what the heck.

Chopped peel.  It was boiled several times in water to remove the bitterness.

Make a sugar syrup, then add peel and boil until syrup is gone.

Drying on the rack.  Once dry, the peel can be rolled in sugar or melted chocolate.

Aside from eating out of hand, what else can be done with candied peel?

Zesty Zucchini Relish

It was time to try making relish.  We started this project last night, as the vegetable mix was salted and needed to sit over night. 

If you can believe it, I'm almost out of canning jars - at least the ones that are recommended to use. I have plenty of the old fashioned kind with the rubber rings.  The recipe is from Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving.  I used purple peppers and hungarian wax peppers.  I also had to go out to my local funky foodstore (Rodman's) to get the horseradish and as always seems to happen, I ran into someone I knew.  Happily, it was an old friend and we spent a few minutes chatting.

Zesty Zucchini Relish

Makes 5 pint jars

12 cups finely chopped zucchini

4 cups copped onions

2 red bell peppers, seeded and chopped

1 green pepper, seeded and chopped

1/3 cup pickling salt

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 1/2 cups white vinegar

1 tblsp ground nutmeg

1 tblsp ground tumeric

4 tblsp prepared horseradish

1 chili pepper, including seeds, chopped.

In a large glass or stainless steel bowl, combine zucchini, onions, peppers, and salt.  Cover and let stand in a cool place for 12 hours or overnight. Transfer to a colander placed over a sink and drain.  Rinse well with cool water and drain thoroughly.  Using your hands, squeeze out excess liquid.

In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine drained zucchini mixture, sugar, vinegar, nutmeg, turmeric, horseradish and chili pepper.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, until liquid is reduced and mixture is the consistency of a thin commercial relish, about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare canner, jars and lids.  Ladle hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.  Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot relish.  Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip tight.

Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes.  Remove Canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

Chopped zucchini

Sean, chopping peppers

Finely chopped peppers

Sean crying from chopping onions

Onions

Mixture with salt

Next day, continuing with relish

Relish to go in the fridge

There's the relish!

More preserving - Hot Sauce

I decided to finally make a batch of hot sauce to use up all the hot peppers in the freezer.  I used a recipe from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine. 

I defrosted 2 - gallon bags of crushed tomatoes (from my garden) - the juice separated a bit but I mixed it all together.  The recipe called for  8 cups of chopped, peeled, seeded tomatoes so I thought this was a good substitute.

Here is a sample of hot peppers used - most from Farmer Allan but many from my gardening friend Edouard's plants (he was traveling for 2 months and I got to pick what I wanted from his garden) - I wore gloves and seeded these peppers. I was sneezing and coughing by the end!

Pickling spice - a mixture of many things like cinnamon, bay, cardamon, mustard seeds, coriander and other things

Combine in pot, add 2 cups white vinegar.  Simmer until peppers are soft, then puree. Back on stove with pickling spices, sugar and more white vinegar.  Simmer until thick.

UPDATE:

Sean and I opened a jar last night and while it was hot, it wasn't lip numbing.  Very very tasty and we ate it on a saute of sausage and kale.  Delicious