Pickle This

Now that the gardening season is no longer in the full swing of things, I had a lot of vegetables that are still somewhat growing or have just about stopped producing.

One of my vegetables that just stopped producing was my peppers. I literally had about 6 pepper plants and they all sort of stopped growing at the same time, and I figured since the holidays are coming and I come from a big Italian family that has antipasto with every holiday meal and one of the favorites among it is the pickled vegetables I figured why not try my hand at pickling my peppers for the first time. I did eggplant last year and it came out AmAzInGg! So, why not try my hand at the peppers!

To begin, I sang a sweet song to the peppers, haha Just Kidding! I washed these bad boys and let them drain, while I waited for them to completely drain, I began to cut up and mince two (2) cloves of garlic, you know us Italians, we LOVE our garlic!

I then packed the peppers in ever so tightly in a hot sterilized jar I had, leaving about 1/2″ headspace. If you would like now is the time to put in at least 4 heads of fresh dill, or if you don’t have fresh dill you can use 2 tablespoons of dill seeds.

In a saucepan, combine 3 cups of water and 1 cup of white vinegar. Mix in 2 tablespoons of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper, bring these bad boys to a boil.

Once the mixture has come to a boil, you will than pour the hot pickling liquid over the peppers, again leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

Adjust the lid and put the closed jar in a boiling water bath for 10 minuets. Once its been 10 minuets, take the jar out of the bath and cool it down before putting the jar in the pantry. Wait about 2 months and then you can enjoy your delicious pickled veggies!

Luckily, in two months my pickled peppers will be ready to eat on December 23, perfect timing for Christmas Eve Dinner!

Ingredients you will need:

• 1lb red peppers or 1 lb green or 1 lb yellow hot pepper (8 cups)
• 4heads fresh dill or 2 tablespoons dill seeds
• 3cups water
• 1cup  white vinegar
• 2tablespoons salt
• 2cloves garlic, minced
• ¹⁄₄teaspoon crushed dried red pepper

 

 

 

 

Green thumb

Every spring and summer I not only enjoy the warmer weather but I enjoy planting seeds into the ground and watching how they grow into something that nourishes your body. Last spring was my first time planting a garden in my very own home, I used to have to ask my father if I can plant fruits and veggies in his backyard when I still lived at my parents home, so to be able to plant whatever I wanted and how ever big I wanted was a dream come true. Well, spring and summer came and went and my garden that I was so excited about produced about 15 tomatoes (i hate tomatoes, so those got given away) 4 heads of lettuce, 10 cucumbers, 4 eggplants, and 6 squashes, not bad for my first garden but it really only lasted me to about the second week in August. So after a not so successful outcome I informed my fiance that I wanted a better garden for next season, luckily around the end of September my father was replacing all the old windows in our 3 family home and asked us if we wanted them for anything, gave me the idea, lets build a greenhouse! We discussed it and looked into some pictures and ideas and what I thought we decided on was a relatively small greenhouse and then I would use the rest for DIY projects (we will get to that project in another post). One Saturday morning in early October I wake up from hearing saw and electrical noises outside, I spring up and look out the window to Justin and his friend building what looks to be a house! I run outside and say “What are you doing?!?” he informs me to go back inside, dont look out the window, go out if I can, and come back in about 3 hours. When I came out 4 hours later (because I really didnt want to walk out into another shock) I am blown away! He made this amazingly beautiful greenhouse out of all the windows from my childhood home and now we would be able to start to plant and grow our seeds, so come spring our yard will be flourished with greenery, vegetables, and fruits!
So here we are June 8 and my garden and the greenhouse are doing great! I couldn’t be happier seeing all the progress and hard work pay off, I can’t wait to see how much we are able to harvest this year.

We planted:
2 different types of Lettuce
Arugula
Brussel Sprouts
Cucumbers
4 different types of Peppers
Tomatoes
Onions
Garlic
Strawberries
Squash
Grapes
Asparagus
Carrots