Peppers, that is.
I no longer can do all the canning and preserving that I did when I was younger but pickling peppers, I can manage.
I happen to love all kinds of peppers and in May our son-in-law gave me two large jalapeño plants that have grown into fat bushes.
I've made at least six jars of hot pepper sauce this summer for the pinto beans and cornbread suppers RH and I have once a week. I use a simple hot brine of 1/2 cup white vinegar and 1/2 cup cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon kosher salt on top of the clean jalapeños, a slit cut in them, and a couple of garlic cloves and a few black peppercorns.
And when my brother-in-law gave us three bags of fresh purple hull peas from his garden, RH and I spent a Sunday afternoon shelling them, taking me back to summer days helping shell them for my father.
My largest colander was overflowing by the time we finished, ready to be blanched and shocked in ice water for the freezer with one pot cooked for supper. Fresh purple hulls are my favorite and were especially good with garlicky hot pepper sauce, last summer's jar shown here. Refilled with more brine, still good but maybe not as much flavor after having been refilled throughout the year. And exactly why I was determined to make plenty this year.
I opened the small jar after a few days and they were crisp! Recipe here.
I hope the link works, it's from kitchendivas.com. "Homemade Hot Pepper Sauce."
By the way, I used empty jars from Trader Joe's giant Chalkidiki Greek olives for this, my favorite olive, even the brine is tasty. I love these so much that RH just bought me six jars for our anniversary this week!
We've been so blessed this summer with fresh vegetables from our gardening neighbors. I saved enough Hungarian wax peppers to make a jar of pickled slices that are so good.
Those tiny peppers are super hot so I made up a small jar of hot sauce with them. [That Cup O' Joe candle from Milkhouse Candle Co. is amazing! They don't sponsor me, I just like to share my favorite candle company.]
We've also been eating these mild peppers in salads all summer, the plant a gift from our daughter.
Here's a bag of just-dug sweet potatoes our neighbor brought us.
I never knew that sweet potatoes could be so good! Eating them reminded me of my father's stories of taking his sweet potatoes to Saturday market in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee when he was a boy.
Blog friend Carla emailed me after my last post about family farms, telling me that she grew up on a family farm that still is in the family and saw what happened to the community when farms were foreclosed on. It affected the whole community and businesses closed in town as a result. She said she was also glad to see many of the old ways coming back among young families during this time of pandemic.
My own pickling is small potatoes to what my favorite homestead bloggers do but it does give me a sense of satisfaction to be putting away for winter one of my favorite vegetables--peppers.
Garth Brooks' lines keep running through my mind when I see a neighbor coming with more peppers for me:
I'm a pepper he's a pepper she's a pepper wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?
