Preserving Your Harvest

[Birdsonghill]

The Habenero are too hot, with too little flavor in return, for me. I smoke my own chipotles from the traditional open pollinated Jalapenos and can some in adobo sauce and dry many for later or grinding into powder. I make many hot sauces, some fermented and some not. My mainstays are a few heirloom Long red Italian cayenne sauces combined with garlic and salt and some with a bit of vinegar or other ingredients and some with none. I make some with fresh chiles and some with dried chiles. I use a lot of dried chiles powdered and blended into rub mixes or chile blends that can be used to season in the kitchen. I routinely grow and make paprika powders, Ancho powder, cayenne, jalapeno, guajillo powders, smoked and plain . I also dehydrate chopped bell peppers and other sweet peppers for a soup/salad blend that is ornamental with the various colors when mixed into a display bin or used in a recipe. Finally, I roast and peel and can some peppers fresh flesh for recipes and sandwiches. The pepper/chile plants are a large part of my garden efforts and make my kitchen a place of both traditional and exotic flavors. Some may be a bit hotter than I want to use or the flavor contribution is not enough for me to warrant the intense heat, but I like hot and spicey to a point! Hot on the inside, cool on the outside is what a friend once said to me. I think good health is encouraged by eating chiles, spicy hot or not!

 

[karenerwin]

I made wild Violet jelly yesterday! Waiting for the redbud trees to bloom so I can make some redbud jelly too. Have stated half heartedly looking for morels but haven't seen any yet. However, a friend that lives about 30 to 45 minutes away found a small one a couple of days ago. In my raised bed I have walking onions and oregano flourishing from what I let overwinter. In the in ground garden I have a sea of carrots. I let some go to seed at the end of the season last year and then just shook them all over. Now I have a ton of them. Pulled a couple yesterday but they aren't ready yet, still very small.
I was gifted 39 zucchini so I grated a few of them, squeezed out as much liquid as I could and now have the shreds in the dehydrator. I read on FB about making zucchini flour (they dehydrated slices not shreds, but I'm hoping it will dry out faster this way). The article said you could replace 1/3 of your flour in a recipe with zucchini flour.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

I got a new stove specifically for ease of canning a few months back. But it's working out great right now for making cheese too.
Before the burners on the electric stovetop would lean and weren't level and I'd fight them constantly, no leaning now and perfectly level.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Cannot find the photo of out stove bought it not long after we moved here I hate electric stoves have always cooked with gas.

 

[Sally PB]

I was in Best Buy the other day, and they had ZERO coil electric stoves on display. I asked someone to look to see if they even sold them. Yes, but it would take a couple weeks to get one in. $529, which was less than I was expecting.

When we replace our 40 year old stove, I will DEMAND that the new one be level!