Canned Heat!!

All good zombie moms know that you need to preserve fresh produce for when the zombie invasion begins.

The first harvest this year is the hot, hot peppers! Yeah!!! Now the scariest thing about this post is if you don't wear your gloves and would accidentally put your finger in your mouth, or gosh forbid, your eye!!! Eeeek!!

First thing is to wash the peppers well.


Next steps are to cap the peppers and de-seed (depending on the level of heat you like to keep in). I like to keep a few of the seeds intact to give the brine and extra kick. Then begin cutting the peppers into rings.




Now the secret is all in the brine. Here's the secret family recipe (I could be killed for sharing this....)
1 qt vinegar
2 qt water
2 c sugar
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp italian seasoning
1 tsp sage



Next, get your jars and lids ready! We run the jars and rings through the dishwasher and leave them in the hot dry cycle until we are ready to stuff them full of peppers. Boil the lids and keep them warm until ready to seal.
Fill each jar with peppers and add 1 tbsp oil and 1 tsp salt. Cover with the brine and seal. Be careful not to get oil on the rim of the jar, or you won't seal....

Harvest Creations...Autumn Salsa

Nothing says fall like a kitchen that smells like peppers and tomatoes cooking in the roaster. This year I decided to start of the preserving with some salsa made from our garden.



I don't like to follow anybody's recipe specifically, because it's mostly done to taste. The steps I follow are rinsing the tomatoes, floating them in a pot of boiling water until the skins begin to crack and transferring to a bowl of cold water to aid in the peeling process. I find that if they sit in the cold water for about 15 minutes that they are much easier to peel and core. (of course keeping the skins and cores to put into our compost bin)










Next I like to chop about 1/3 of the onions I plan on using. Simply peel and quarter to size for the chopper. I pulse it several times to make them very fine. I also do this with about 1/3 of the sweet red and green peppers to make the flavors really combine with the juices from the tomatoes. Then I take the remaining 2/3 of the onions and green/red sweet peppers and cut them into large size chunks and add to the tomato mixture.











Now here's where you pick your degree of hotness. Rather than adding the hot peppers in chunks (I hate getting one hot bite) I cap off the peppers and cut them down whole, leaving the seeds intact (because we all know that's where the heat is). Add them to the chopper and pulse down to an extremely fine consistency.







I season with the usual...salt, pepper, garlic salt/powder, sugar and vinegar. I taste test regularly to check the spice and vary it as needed. After cooking for about 12 hours on very low temps...cool...and bag in serving sizes for the freezer. I use to can in jars, but freezing keeps the flavor so much better, in my opinion. Now in the middle of winter when you get a hankering for the taste of fall, just thaw out some home-made salsa and 'ole!