One Lonely Gourd

I started bird house gourd plants this spring. I gave one to my mom and I kept one to plant on my trellis on the garage. My mom had a gourd set fairly early on, it’s pretty big now. Mine is still fairly small but it seems to be growing.

I was hoping to get more than 1 gourd since I was wanting to give them out for Christmas. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to try again next year. It was just something I decided to grow to add a little fun to the gardens.

Anything fun growing in your garden?

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Making Jalapeño Jelly

I’m always game for making new things, particularly when it comes to enjoying fresh produce from the farmer’s market. When I was at the market last weekend I saw some lovely jalapeño peppers, so I snatched them up. While contemplating what to do with them and I came across Baby Loves Jellies post about making jalapeño jelly.

Since I’m a big fan of all things spicy, particularly where spicy hot peppers are involved, I knew this jelly was right up my alley. This recipe is particularly interesting because it is made with all jalapeño peppers and it contains no green peppers. It’s actually more of a jam than a jelly because you don’t strain out the seeds like you do in a lot recipes. Of course the result is a hotter jelly than most recipes.

Since I cannot follow a recipe to a T, I amended it to suit my tastes. I don’t like to use pectin when making jams/jellies, I prefer using tart apples or nothing at all. I find that certain jellies, particularly this one, work well if they’re a little runny. After all, you don’t really want to use huge amounts of this jam on your toast, it is quite spicy!

Jalapeño Jelly

12 jalapeños
2 tart green apples, chopped
2 cups cider vinegar, divided (I prefer organic unfiltered raw apple cider vinegar)
6 cups sugar (I use organic evaporated cane juice which makes the jelly darker)
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
2 green jalapeños, diced finely (for added texture, add to blender with peppers above if you don’t want jalapeño bits in your jelly)
2 red hot peppers, diced finely (for added color, you can use sweet if you’d like, or add additional jalapeños)

Chop up 12 of the jalapeños and add them to blender with one cup vinegar and the 2 chopped apples and liquefy.

Make sure the wear rubber gloves while cutting & handling peppers since the hot pepper oil can burn the skin. Also don’t inhale too deeply when opening blender and when cooking the jelly, can cause coughing. Make sure you wash your hands well after handling peppers to remove all pepper oil.

Combine the pepper & apple purée with the remaining cup of vinegar, lemon juice and sugar in a pan and bring the mixture to a boil over high heat.

Boil for ten minutes, stirring often. If it’s not thick enough boil longer, test for thickness by putting some on a cold plate and letting it rest. Remove from heat and add remaining diced red peppers and jalapeños and stir to incorporate.

Ladle directly into hot, sterilized jars. Leave a quarter inch of headspace. Remove any air bubbles and wipe the rims clean. Add lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

I canned this jelly in small 4 oz jars because I figured a pint or half pint might not be used up quick enough. I ended up with 12- 4 oz jars and 2-8 oz jars.

This jelly is perfectly spicy, of course I love hot spicy foods. It’s perfect on things like cornbread, or a bagel with cream cheese. I even added some to my apple pancakes the other evening and it added the perfect spiciness, of course Mr Chiots thought I was crazy. I think a jar of this mixed with a jar of chutney would make a great BBQ sauce for chicken or salmon.

Are you a hot spicy food lover, or do you prefer to keep things on the tame side?

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I Spy Pumpkins

While visiting my mom’s house this weekend I had to take a photo of these pumpkins. They are planted in our corn patch as part of a 3 sisters garden.

Do you recognize these? They’re Cinderella Pumpkin ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ of course, from those seeds I saved last fall.

Anyone else growing great things from saved seeds?

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My Kitchen Table

My kitchen table is currently littered with canning supplies and a surplus of veg from the garden and the farmer’s market. It is the season for preserving summer’s bounty for those long dreary winter months.

I’m not a big fan of canning, but I do love the delicious food all winter long.

What methods do you employ to preserve summer’s bounty?

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Planting Peas & Other Fall Crops

I’ve been trying to sneak in time to plant a bunch of crops for a fall harvest. I started cabbage and other things a few weeks ago. Last week I planted the rest of my peas. Peas and beans don’t last week in storage, they seem to have lower germination, so I decided to plant them all and order fresh seeds in the spring.

I’m hoping I can protect these little peas from the deer that gobbled up my spring planting. I don’t have any peas in the freezer because the deer ate them all. I planted them a week ago and I have had about 85% germination so far so I’d better get out there and put up a fence.

Do you have anything you’re trying to get in this fall growing season that didn’t work out in the spring?

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