Yeah! The wood is here for my summer kitchen. Plans have been in the works for a few months but we’ve kept changing our minds about location and size. We have finally decided to go back to Plan A (isn’t that always the way?). I hope it’s up in time to get some use this year. As I type this, I can hear the geese honking as they fly in formation. One day, the heat is rendering us nearly comatose, the next, I can feel fall in the air.
I have a further sign of approaching winter. The urge to hunker down and feather my nest has hit in a big way. Well, either it approaching winter or I’m pregnant. As I just had my 59th birthday, I definitely going with winter. Yesterday, I decided that I really needed more space. I actually went so far as to order some cabinets but cancelled the order when I realized I had, not just a lack of space, but an overflow of stuff. I spent the day cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen. I looks so nice. I was able to get a lot of clutter off the counters and out of drawers and cabinets. I used some small, plastic bins I had hanging around to organize the baking drawer and now I just have to keep it tidy. It will be easier as I got rid of a ton of little gadgets I never use. I had extras of things like rolling pins and egg separators and citrus reamers. They are now all sitting in a box, waiting to go the thrift store where someone else will give them a good home. I also found some truly outdated food. The chickens liked the old, canned brown bread but, as the apocalypse appears to have been pushed back for a few weeks, I figured we could live without.
It’s canning time. What got me started on the great kitchen clean out was trying to make bread and butter pickles and not being able to find my measuring spoons in my cluttered drawer. The pickles are now finished as are the dilly beans. The beans are coming along like crazy as are the squash. We just finished the last of the winter squash that I dried last year. After a lot of internal (and eternal) debate, I’m thinking I may dehydrate all of it this year. It takes up no space compared to the room full of butternuts I had last year, preparing it is a simple as covering it with boiling water and letting it sit for a few minutes and I like knowing I can have squash on the spur of the moment for a meal or to add to soup or muffins. I also lost a lot of squash last year. It can rot very quickly if you don’t keep on top of it. I can cook up an oven full when I have it hot for baking bread and do a full Excalibur load several times a week and be done with it in short order. There. I’ve talked myself into it. Dried it is.
In checking out the blog of a new subscriber I found that she is pickling hot banana peppers. I received a flat of pepper seedings and thought they were red peppers. It was a disappointment to find they were hot as we aren’t really fans of too much heat. I’m going to try pickling some and see if the heat dissipates some.
I have to get to the garden. It rained yesterday and I expect the squash and beans have exploded. I’m teaching a pickling class in Stockbridge this afternoon and then I have my foster and adoption support group picnic here tonight. I’m expecting a house full and I need to get a lot done this morning. Top of the list is getting the beans dilled and the squash dried. The sun is shining now and it looks to be a spectacular morning. Life is good and blessing are abundant.
August 10, 2011 at 7:18 am
Do you fully bake your winter squash and then slice and dehydrate? Or do you do small chuncks or mash?
August 10, 2011 at 7:20 am
I cook it in the skin then cut it up and run it through the squeezo. Then I dry it as a puree on paraflex sheets. When it’s crispy, I break it up and store it in mason jars. It sounds like more work than it is.
August 10, 2011 at 7:44 am
I’m drying a lot more this year also. It’s a great day after two days of rain, si I’m out to the garden as well. Have a great day!
August 10, 2011 at 9:09 am
After reading about the abundance of banana peppers, I have a great recipe to help use some of them up. I usually use plain banana peppers but throw in a few hot for a bit of zip. Super easy. This is delicious served with meats and is wonderful on sandwiches.
Banana Pepper Mustard
36 banana pepers,run through food processor to a med chop
1 quart apple cider vinegar
5 cups sugar
1 pint water
1 cup plain fllour
1 quart mustard
After chopping the banana peppers put into a large pot along with vinegar, sugar and mustard. Bring to a boil. Mix together the flour and water to form a paste. Add slowly to boiling mixture, stirring until smooth. Cook until thickens.
(You want this to be spreadable so not too firm).
I never make enough of this. My family loves it and all my friends want it.
Hope that you will find it helpful.
August 10, 2011 at 9:39 am
How do you preserve this? It makes a ton and, with the flour, can’t be canned. I wonder about the type. They may be Hungarian Wax. They pack serious heat.
August 10, 2011 at 10:30 am
“as the apocalypse appears to have been pushed back for a few weeks” You crack me up!
Another thanks for the videos. I am making pesto this afternoon!
August 10, 2011 at 10:46 am
bantybelle, that’s a quart of *prepared* mustard, yes? just making sure…
August 10, 2011 at 10:51 am
I may take it back about the few weeks!
August 10, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Hi Kathy,
I am lurker who rarely comments but I read, you and I have a mutual friend who let know that you were blogging after I put some pieces together in a conversation and realised that you were that Kathy Harrison – all that being said I am wondering how your dry your squash, I usually freeze most of ours but that involves cooking it, which involves the oven and lots of work. I also read that you are drying cauliflower, can you tell me more about that as well, like how do you cut up so that it will dry out but not crumble up. How long do you dry and then how do you re-hydrate it?
Thanks
August 10, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Hey! I just turned 59 too – about 3 weeks ago. Maybe at ‘our age’ we take things a little more seriously, but I’ve been getting the ‘nesting’ bug too. I realized it may be in the mid-90s out there, but Fall is right around the corner! I’ve never had an Autumn garden, but I’m trying one this year. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts went in last night.
August 10, 2011 at 3:10 pm
This is what I love about your site, Kathy…no doom and gloom, just preservation (and self-preservation) as usual! No political rants, no discussions about ammo, just let’s focus on the food! Thank you for that!
August 10, 2011 at 8:52 pm
If your not swimming in peppers, try this recipe – http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09314.html
Its a spicy veggie mix and you can vary the heat with the number/type of peppers used. Made it for the first time last year and it was a big hit. There are six pints sitting on my counter made at the request of a friend.
If you are swimming in peppers, hot sauce! We add a drop or two to butternut soup, it really livens it up. Although there are many hot sauce recipes available online, most are short on the vinegar. I’ve read that hot sauce has to be 1/4 vinegar by volume to be left on the table safely. (we store ours in the fridge anyway) And pulling out the remains of the hottest peppers before running the pot through the blender or foley mill can be the difference between happy heat and painful.
August 10, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Kathy I dried pumpkin last year like that and my daughter rehydrates it about 2 T at a time for baby food. We are going to try greenbeans, peas and carrots this year the same way – do you ever puree them??
August 11, 2011 at 1:13 pm
As to the pepper mustard, I wonder if you could substitute Clear Jel for the flour, making it appropriate for canning? I would think that might work. I’m like you, Kathy, always wondering how to preserve food. (Rather than keeping it in my too-little refrigerator).
August 11, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Wow, what synchronicity, or maybe the fact that peppers are coming off now. Just canned 9 pints of pickled peppers. Used a sugar free recipe (4 cups white vinegar, 2 cups water, 1 tablespoon pickling salt plus one teaspoon. Boil vinegar mixture . Add cut up peppers without seeds to sterile pint jars. Add clove garlic. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.
BTW, remove the seeds to reduce the heat.
August 11, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Obviously you add the boiling vinegar to the pint jars with the pepper rings. Forgot to add that.