Warm-your-insides Hot Cherry Peppers

On cool weather weekends, a good pot roast with hot cherry peppers on the side is a family favorite around our house. This year the peppers will be from our garden instead of the grocer's shelf.

Preserving food was a fact of life years ago. Today it's an artful craft resurging in popularity. Bringing freshness to the family table from the family garden creates an intimate relationship with our food.  And the taste can't be beat.

It won't be long now!

HOT CHERRY PEPPERS
2 pounds raw hot cherry peppers, mixed green and red
3 cups vinegar
1 cup water
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Leave peppers whole, cutting stems close to the top. Set aside. Combine vinegar, water and garlic in a large saucepan. bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simme five minutes. Strain out garlic. Pack peppers into hot pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Ladle hot liquid over peppers leaving the headspace. Press down on the peppers with the back of a spoon to release bubbles. Adjust two piece caps. Process ten minutes in a boiling water bath. Makes 3 pints.

Comments

  1. TinkyAugust 22, 2010 at 8:51 PM

    Oh--I might just have to make these (if I can find the right peppers). They're one of my favorite things...... Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grape Infused Vodka Update

Image
It took an overnight frost for our homegrown grapes to sweeten up but the wait was worth it. A big sloppy thank you smooch goes out to Mayor Mike Tautznik of Easthampton, MA for sharing his home infusion method for fruit flavored vodka. Fiddling around with Mayor Mike's sure-fire recipe helped me come up with the perfect formula for home infusing store-bought vodka with the Concord grapes from our backyard garden. And the abundance of those grapes carefully cultivated by the Man of the House deserves another big sloppy thank you smooch, this time for Farmer Paul. Start by boiling a big pot of water to sterilize pint-sized canning jars and their covers. Once they are cool, fill each about 3/4 full with thoroughly washed Concord grapes plucked from the ripest of bunches. Add one teaspoon of super fine sugar. Pour your choice of plain vodka over the grapes, leaving about 1/2 inch headroom before closing the jars. Shake gently to dissolve sugar before storing in a cool dark spot. Two w
Read more

The Joy of Holiday Cookies

Image
Nothing sweetens the season like holiday cookies! The name comes from the Dutch koejke which translates to "little cake" -- the perfect single serving treat. Cookies have been part of cooking history for more than a thousand years and nearly every culture has a bite sized sweet that qualifies as a cookie. Every year I try to come up with a new twist on an old favorite to celebrate the season for my annual cookie swap. These tasty morsels are my version of rugelach , a traditional Jewish pastry filled with nuts, raisins or apricots, cinnamon and sugar wrapped in a flaky crust. A few good friends sharing a bottle of bubbly then going home with the bounty of a platter full of homemade cookies and the recipes. Lots of fun and yumminess, too! RUGELACH Dough 2 cups all-purpose flour Dash of salt 1 tablespoon white sugar 1 cup unsalted butter 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese 1/3 cup plain or lemon flavored yogurt Filling 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon 1 cup finely
Read more

Seasonal Surprises: Savory Blueberry Chutney

Image
My first taste of Sheila Lukins came after stumbling across The Silver Palate food shop on Columbus Avenue, NYC in the late 1970s.  It was a short road to discovering chutney wasn’t just a mango and ginger concoction.  Sheila Lukins of Silver Palate Cookbook fame was cutting edge back then.  I was hooked from that first taste all the way to mixing things up with blueberry chutney to glaze Asian style roast chicken . Blueberry chutney was the inspiration for my Spicy Blueberry Barbecue Sauce, an original recipe that made me a national award winner in the Highbush Blueberry Council’s 2008 recipe contest.  Who’da thunk?  Next month will mark two years since Sheila Lukins died -- too young but not without having made her mark on a generation of home cooks like me. This recipe is adapted from an original Silver Palate recipe.  Over the years, I’ve added and subtracted this or that.  Serve with roasted turkey, duck or goose, meat or curries.  Hint: Mix a tablespoon of chutney with
Read more