Some Like It Hot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4cNVusWlVs

It was a lousy year for my peppers.  They pretty much sat there all summer and then all of the sudden, sprouted a bunch of peppers.  In the meantime, I got three bags full of chili peppers from my CSA share.  Two bags of Anaheims and one bag of Poblanos.

The end result of this, was that I found myself with a ton of chili peppers.  I thought about what I could do with them.  Most of the canning websites suggested pickling them in vinegar.  eh.  I'm not overly found of pickled peppers in spite of the fact that I used to be able to say that tongue twister perfectly at top speed, so I kept looking.

Someone suggested a chili pepper mead.  Intriguing.  I do make mead - pretty good mead, if I do say so myself.  However, that would involve a lot of honey and perhaps not as many peppers as I had.

Someone else suggested green enchilada sauce.  Oh heavens, I do love me some green enchilada sauce.  Es verdad. Este es muy bueno.

So, I chopped up the lot...removed as many of the seeds and membranes as I could.

and then took my emulsion blender to them.  Not happening.  Just not enough juice to get it going.  hmmm...

So I decided to add a little bit of water and cook them for a bit until they were soft.

 I simmered them for about 30 minutes and then revisited the situation with the blender.  ahhh... MUCH better.

A few whirs later (but not before getting a splat in my eye... ouch) I had a beautiful smooth puree, which I then put through my food mill.  I ended up with this lovely stuff...

Holy mole, it looked so good, that I took a little sip from the spoon.  Holy Mother Of All That Is Sacred.  Several minutes later, when my breathing and pulse had returned to normal, I decided to let this atomic stuff cool, divide it up into SMALL portions and freeze it.  I can add some chicken stock to some of it and make green enchilada sauce that way.  Or at least that is the plan.  Either that or let it eat through the floor boards.

Update on the saurkraut... it is bubbling away and looking very saurkrautesque.  You can see it in the next photo, to the left of my hand.  Today in my CSA share, I received this monster...

I have named him Sr. Winthrop C. Cabbage.  Guess what I'm going to do with him?  Yup... more saurkraut.  Here is his friend, the Esteemed Buford S. Butternut, III.

 He shall become butternut squash gnocchis and perhaps some smooshed squish with butter n brown sugar...

Now, I have to go see if my tonsils are still there.

Good Soup Weather

I was all set to do some fall yard work today.  Perhaps some cleaning up some dead canes and straightening stuff up, but when I woke up, it was damp and dreary.

So instead, I cleaned up the kitchen.

Then I thought, "Self?  Why don't you make some soup?"

"Self", I said, "That's a great idea."

So, I did.  This:

Plus about 2 hours, became this:

7 Quarts of vegetable beef soup.  I forgot to put vinegar in the canner, so I have to scrub haze off the jars tomorrow once they've cooled and settled, but still.  

I had enough left over for a big bowl for lunch.  

Perfect day.