My garden has peppers. Many of them. This is my (possibly) end-of-season collection from Friday: anaheims, jalapenos, and three colors of bell peppers.
After several unsuccessful attempts to find a cheap, gigantic pot for water-bath canning, I ended up at the mercado on 38th and Nicollet. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before; they had tamale steamers in mass quantity. I got a pot that easily fits 8 cans, with a built-in bottom rack, for $20.
I ended up with three jars of chopped peppers (perfect for replacing those mini-cans of green chiles I buy regularly), and one of sliced jalapenos. (I tried my last batch of pickled jalapenos and anaheims last week: they did get less hot – thank god – and were fantastic!)
I made 2 jars of salsa, too, using only ingredients we had in the house, mostly from the garden.
In non-farming news, we went to Oktoberfest at Gasthof Friday night, followed by an awesome tour of Minneapolis including the Double Deuce, Grumpy’s for dinner, where we met up with Willis, and then Town Talk. We were a little distressed to learn that the wholesale change in bartending staff means that nobody knows what a Mexican Wrestler is anymore, but otherwise it’s the same old Town Talk. With an expanded classic cocktail menu, even! I’m a fan.
Saturday night, Matt and I went to see a trio of cover bands at Memory Lanes. First was Johnny Cash, then an all-girl Clash tribute band, then Primus. OH MY GOD, the Primus band (known as Frizzle Fry) was awesome. They apparently play regularly at Whiskey Junction, so we’ll be checking them out again.
Yesterday was the perfect Sunday: watching football, knitting, making awesome meals, and watching a movie. Also packing, because have I mentioned we’re going to Hawaii this weekend?? I wish I could stop thinking about it, but I can’t help it!
How did the salsa turn out? I’m looking for a good recipe to use with ingredients from the farmer’s market (we’re canning fools as well).
it was surprisingly good! i thought i’d have to season it (it was just tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, jalapenos, and vinegar), but it was really good already.
i wish i’d have saved the recipe! i may be able to find it at home.
We ended up finding a recipe on-line to try, and I think it turned out very good:
30 tomatoes peeled and chopped
2 green bell peppers
2 red bell peppers
10 cups chopped onions
10 cloves garlic
4-5 yellow banana pepper or 1 cup chopped jalapenos
1/2-3/4 cup sugar
2 cups vinegar
8 teaspoons pickling salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 large cans tomato paste
Cook it all together for 1 1/2 hours, add a bunch of chopped cilantro, and can per the typical instructions.
We replaced the red and green peppers with Poblanos (because, well, why not?), used a mixture of jalapeno, Fresno and hatch peppers for the bananas, since we couldn’t find any, and we probably used a good twice as much as the recipe called for. And we halved the vinegar, sugar and onions to our preferences. We’ll see how the flavors blend with time, and how it stores into the winter, but the taste tests were impressive.
i’m definitely going to give that a try! thanks!