Jalapeno Jelly

Just think of how scrumptious this jalapeno jelly will taste this winter. It will be slathered on a warm slice of cornbread, no doubt. Knowing last spring that I planned to make this jelly, I selected a variety of jalapeno peppers called 'Fooled You'. This pepper has all of the fruity delicious flavor without the heat. Really...no heat.

My only taste of this batch of jelly came on the tip of a spoon. You know... that little bit of jelly setting up in the bowl after the jars have been filled. That tiny bite was a teaser. Sweet as you would expect jelly to be, minus the familiar fruity flavor of typical jellies. Most interesting I must tell you.

I plan to make more tomorrow.

The recipe can be found in the Ball Canning Book.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Hot damn summer is almost over!

I am so longing for the early evenings of September. Autumn and winter are a magical time for me personally. To pinpoint my exact moment of zen is easy. My perfect scenario of time and space arrives just as the leaves have fallen. The darkness comes before 7PM and a light dusting of snow is in the forecast. *Sigh*
This is the time when all of the ass- busting work in the garden is most appreciated. Oh, I love to garden. I mean the actual physical labor involved in the process is rewarding. Self satisfaction is gained from growing my own food. Trying the new recipes, and photographing the harvest, these all add interest to the undertaking.

Then as the season changes, the cold weather fronts move in and our garden plot lies silent.

Inside my kitchen, the garden springs back to life. A great dinner comprised of various ingredients that we have preserved is about to served. These home grown delights are made all the better if it's cold enough to build a fire in the fireplace. Let's not forget about how wonderful it is to crank out the baked goods and actually enjoy the heat from the oven too.

For tomorrow, the forecast mentioned nothing about snow. Damn it!

However, I will be canning jalapeno jelly, hot pickled peppers, and a few other random garden things. One beautiful sign that autumn is on it's way....the Black Walnuts are piling up on the ground, ready for my hot little hands to harvest!

And just a little side note...the cake mentioned in the above link stayed fresh and delicious in the freezer for months. Every now and then I would sneak a single piece out for myself and savor it with a cup of coffee!

Campfire Grub

One day this week, I will make a genuine effort to snap some photos of the garden and cook something fabulous, I promise...my family could use a good healthy meal. The humble little world of Columbia Creations has seen lots of traveling this Summer 2010. Every week I have high hopes of posting recent garden growth photos. The weekend rolls around, and off we go on some new excursion, leaving the blog world behind.

This is a sample of our menu while camping a few weeks ago.

Steamy hot... right off the fire.

Campfire Potatoes

3lbs. of new red potatoes ( dug a few days earlier)
Olive Oil
Dry Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing
Foil
Gallon Size Zipper Baggie

This is just a perfect camping recipe. I transport all of the ingredients in the baggie. Directions are impossible to mess up.

Just minutes before cooking once your fire has sufficient hot coals;
Wash and chop the potatoes
place them in the zipper bag
 drizzle olive oil over potatoes
sprinkle generously with dry ranch dressing
pour the contents of the bag into foil, wrap well in several layers of foil
place indirectly over the fire
 flip occassionally
 test for doneness by poking the potatoes with a fork, when the potatoes are soft they are done!
Caution...Steam is hot!
Not gourmet...just yummy at night time around the campfire.

Shish Kabob

Let's face it ,who hasn't been served Shish Kabob and the meat is over-cooked in an attempt to get the peppers soft, or the meat is cooked perfectly and the vegies are just nasty underdone flavorless hunks.
I solved this problem by making one entire skewer for each individual component of the dish. Once again, this dish is great for camping.
 Each one of the proteins can be placed into marinade before you leave your kitchen. Toss into a baggie and store in the cooler.
The peppers and onions are from my garden, the mushrooms are not...although next year I am hoping to convince Mister that we should grow our own. I found a mushroom growing kit in a catalog. It's cheaper to buy mushrooms from the grocery. My thoughts are... that it might be cool to grow them myself ( I don't really even like them), I just cook them for others. Okay now I'm rambling again!! Back to this Shish Kabob.

It's all very easy to do. Soak the skewers, lace the skewers with items, cook and eat!!

We chowed!!

Life is slightly slower, can there be redemption for stripping myself of all reason and taking on too much? Baby steps.

Photos

Carrots... white, yellow, purple, and red! I thought this was pretty cool! I'm not sure what recipe I will use them in yet. One thing is for certain, there is something magical about pulling a purple carrot out of the garden.

The tiny little black onion seed will be saved for next years garden. Several of my crops have been allowed to go to seed in anticipation of Garden 2011. The onion rows almost resemble a flower bed with the huge clumps of seed pockets shooting from the top of the onion. Most likely I am missing some fancy technical term for 'clumps of seeds'....aaaaa who cares, I like my term just fine.

Digging potatoes today turned into a rather labor intensive job. Only because I neglected to pull the weeds between the hills. After I actually located the base of the plant, and untangled it from the pesky weeds, the work turned to joy. I haven't weighed the haul from today. My fair guess would be 40 lbs.of Red Potatoes and 60 lbs. of Yukon Gold came from the three rows that were dug. For some reason I have it in my head that I will experiment with freezing my own homemade hashbrowns. How hard can it be?

Banana Peppers have such a classic beauty as they grow.

 I cringe at the thought of the amount of work waiting for me tomorrow.

 I love my huge garden.

I especially love it during the blizzards of winter....soup, stews and more.

 Yet, every year around this time, I swear next years garden will be smaller.

 Harvest time is so super busy!

 Then spring rolls around again and I see the bare ground.

 An empty canvas waiting to explode with vegetable color.

Poblano Peppers / Chile Rellenos

Our Poblano pepper plants are waist high. Each plant is producing about 8 peppers a week. Naturally, Chile Rellenos were bound to wind up on the dinner table sooner than later. Our local Mexican restaurants have conflicted variations on the Chile Relleno. So, for that reason I can't exactly tell you that this version is authentic. In fact, the recipe I used as a general guide tonight specified to use green peppers. I like Poblano peppers in this dish. Check out my harvest today.

The base recipe I referred to came from Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook. I will be posting my version with all of the improvisation.

1. Wash those peppers

2. Blacken the skins and rub this layer off. Two methods can be used, direct flame or oven roasting. I am still tinkering with this step. Oven baking almost softens the pepper too much and direct flame doesn't seem to soften enough. You experiement and let me know which you like best.

Remove the charred layer

Okay, I forgot the photograph the next step so bare with me here!
3. Make a small slit into the pepper, remove the seeds, leaving the top in tact. I used Brick and Monty Jack cheese because that is what I had. Stuff a huge chunk of cheese inside the pepper and toothpick to hold together if needed.

4. Dust the pepper with all purpose flour.

5. Now, here is where the measuring just gets out of control and I am only offering a guideline of one egg per two peppers. Seperate the egg white, saving the yolk. Beat the whites to stiff peaks, gently beat the yolk and fold into the egg white. Season generously with salt (approximately 1/4 tsp. per egg). Add a generous pinch of sugar (Yes Sugar...don't skip it) and fresh cracked black pepper. Dip the whole package into this divine batter.
6. Fry the pepper in olive oil.

7. I am fortunate enough to have tons of fresh vegies for the sauce. I suppose you could use jarred salsa and follow this step as is. I had this mixture on hand. Lemon juice, various chopped peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro. Sooo I processed it all together.

This mixture was simmered on low with a 1 cup of water, and about 1/4 cup of sugar for 15 minutes.

Then......

Smother your pepper with this delicious sauce!

I should have taken a photo with the cheese gushing out once the fork was taken to this little package of joy. At that point....the camera just wasn't on my mind. Photos, as usual, do not do this dish justice!!

Cabbage recipe

This recipe will make the collection. It was found in my new favorite reading of Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Cookbook. I'm always on the search for new unique side dishes and this recipe sounded good. My treasure of a cookbook was purchased for $1.00 at a local flea market. As I read through the whole book I wrote down page numbers of dishes I want to make. Ya never know...a recipe might sound good on paper but taste nasty. Scalloped Cabbage is a keeper.

Here is the recipe as it appeared, with my variations highlighted.

4 cups of shredded cabbage ( I cut mine into strips 1"x2")
1/3 cup canned tomatoes ( I used Rotel with green chiles )
1 cup of medium white sauce (from same book recipe follows)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup bread crumbs ( I used Panko crumbs)

Cook the cabbage in just enough salted boiling water to cover, cooking until tender. Drain. Place into a well buttered 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Mix the white sauce and tomatoes with the cabbage. Sprinkle generously with bread crumbs and cheddar cheese, mixing some down in with the cabbage. I basically just layered everything. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until top is bubbly and golden brown. My bake time was longer... around 35 minutes.

Medium White Sauce

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup milk

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour and seasonings until smooth. Add milk slowly. Cook and stir continually over medium heat until desired thickness.

I have to admit, when I think of cooked cabbage, the horror smell of overcooked stinky cabbage comes to mind. This is not that kind of dish. It's mellow well balance of flavors only offers a clean fresh flavor of the vegetable. Hey, cabbage is cheap. How could you go wrong for at least giving it a try?

Of course, my cabbage was free...right out of the garden baby! Look at this bad boy.. delicious!

Campfire Grub

Pineapple Inside Cakes....If we are going camping, you can be certain the following four food items will be going with us. Sliced pineapples, margarine, brown sugar, and cake doughnuts are always on my shopping list.

Split the doughnut in half.
Spread each side with butter/margarine
Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Add the pineapple slice and sandwich the whole deal together.

At this point you can lock the whole package down into a pie iron or wrap it up in some tin foil. Either way... it's going into the coals of the campfire. Cook for about four minutes on each side. This is certainly one of my posts where photos are really rough. My hope is that you can get the gist of this dish, despite the quality of the pictures, and make this swell little treat.

I say yucko to Smores..

It's crunchy on the outside, syrupy sweet and tangy on the inside!

Fresh

Tonight, my evening meal, satisfied like none other. 

 

My plate started out like this. I gnashed on everything seperately and slowly began building the little delicious bundles on romaine lettuce. A chill goes down my spine with excitement when I serve a meal composed almost entirely of food that we have grown. So, let's break it all down.

    Corn from the freezer

(dated August 27, 2009)

was just as delicious and fresh as if it were fresh cut today.

Romaine lettuce, I know...lettuce wasn't on the original garden planning list. I just couldn't resist at least a little lettuce. This was so tender and crisp and scrumptious.

Check this...new red potatoes cooked, buttered, and parsley from the herb garden chopped roughly with coarse sea salt!! New red potatoes are so creamy and subtle in flavor.

Snow peas, sauteed in extra virgin olive oil with broccoli, red pepper flakes, and jalapeno. I squeezed the juice of one lemon over the whole spicy, crunchy greenery. Now all I need is a lemon tree. We grew the peas, broccoli, and jalapeno for this dish. Harvested, cooked and eaten in under an hour!

It's so much fun to wander out to the garden, pick the vegies that are ready for harvest, wander back in the house, and let the fun begin. Fresh herbs are an extra added bonus. If you do not have the space to grow vegetables, please consider a small herb garden. This was such a rewarding meal for me!

Cut Flowers Rule

I have a funky little herb garden, surrounded by marigolds, zinnias, and various rocks. I gather the rocks as I hoe the rows of the vegetables. What started out as a small pile of rocks quickly became a huge pile. To best utilize the natural items of the earth, I formed a cute little border around my herb bed with that huge pile.

Double duty...beautiful cut flowers for a centerpiece at the dinner table. Casually arranged in a manner to show how beautiful they are without being fussy.

Photos