Just Some Stuff For Today

Since it was supposed to be rainy, I put off pepper day until today. Here’s a shot of the paprika’s in the dehydrator and a sheet pan of the sweet ones for the freezer – we freeze individually then bag so we can just get out what we need (they were partially frozen when I remembered the photo). Hopefully, those still in the garage will turn and I’ll get a few more colored ones to both freeze and dry.



This must be the definite end of summer at Almost Heaven-South as we’re closing the dock on Sunday and took the jet ski out yesterday. I had to wade in the water to load it on the trailer and the water was refreshing to say the least.

I received my new herbs and spices from Penzey’s yesterday so I made up a quart jar of my chili powder – it has everything you need to season the chili except salt, black pepper, and heat – it has a slight heat, but we use powdered cayenne to get it where we want. I used the coffee grinder (dedicated to spices), to grind the herb leaves into coarse powder. Here’s a pic of the ingredients except the Ancho powder, which got left out.


While I was typing this, Bev got this picture of Bella working at Alex’s computer – checking her email I guess as she seemed to be reading intently.

My Morning Drive

I finally remembered to take my camera with me this morning to take some shots along my morning drive to take Alex to school. I took all of these out the car window, so this is what I actually see. I love living in the country and hate to see more and more of this beautiful land being turned into sub-divisions.

This is one of the prettiest pieces of land I've seen and it has a couple thousand feet on the lake.


The mist coming off the lake - note the tree reflections on the other side.


Hay rolls waiting to be stored.


The last cutting of hay ready to be bailed.


A couple of barns and pastures.





A once proud farm being reclaimed by nature. Hopefully some one will come along and restore it as is being done to another up the road.


I'd sure like to know what all this old guy has done in his life.


There's something soothing about grazing cattle.


Another barn in need of some work.


A few shots of the lake and the light morning fog.




The entrance to the only development in the area.


Another lake shot - peaceful in the morning.


The main road just prior to my turn off.


My neighbors pasture and a few of his Belted Galloways (oreo cows).


The little lane I live along - hopefully I'll get this shot with some snow.

Hope you enjoyed the show and have a great day.
Larry

The Garden Is Officially Done

What a beautiful fall day it is here in East Tennessee – clear blue sky and about 60* as I write this – I’m taking a back resting break from pepper washing.

After two nights of frost this week, the garden is now definitely finished for the season. I harvested the remaining sweet peppers today and have a pretty big pile. We just slice into strips and freeze the sweet ones in quart bags and use them for cooking – we put peppers in many, many dishes. We used to chop some, but realized we could always chop the strips, but found it very difficult to reassemble the diced ones in to strips for stir fry, fajitas, etc. Since they lose their crunch when thawed, they don’t work well in salads, etc. but they're great for all things cooked.

Here’s a pic of the sweet ones. A few will be used for fajita’s at Sundays close-the-dock-for-the-season party, the ripe ones will be cut up and the others will be given a week to ripen before slicing.


I also picked about 6 gallons of paprika’s and I’m hopeful that most of them will go ahead and turn red so they can be dried and ground – it takes lots of peppers to make a little powder – don’t think I’ll go into the paprika business without a factory.


I also picked a few gallons of anaheims. The green ones will be roasted, peeled, frozen and used as, what else, chile peppers (we don't have to buy canned ones this way and can even make our own Rotel), with a few of the bigger ones becoming chile relleno’s soon. The ripe ones will be dried and ground. Here’s a pic of the pile.


Finally, I froze a few whole jalapeno’s for use in salsa, soups, etc – we still have plenty of sliced, pickled ones from previous years.

As is usual for peppers, they begin putting on lots of new fruit in late summer as it cools off a little and I probably left as many peppers in the garden as I picked because they were too small to fool with – which it absolutely pains me to do.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of the story and thanks for reading my ramblings. Larry

Butt Ugly But

Pretty tasty. I grew some of the ugliest sweet potatoes ever this year – many of them just grew together into blobs. But since we have them, I decided to grill this one tonight. It was so gnarly, I had to cut it in half to wash it – was about 6” across. It was cut into slices, steamed til almost tender, then grilled with some olive oil and finely chopped rosemary from the herb garden. We sided it with some grilled eggplant, which just came out of the garden and steak from the freezer. I know it’s an unusual combo, but we’re trying to eat what’s on hand. The eggplant was marinated in Italian dressing, grilled and topped with shredded cheddar. The steak was dusted with Texas Rib Rangers Gourmet Steak Seasoning and grilled to medium rare.

Isn't it a beauty


Ready for the grill.


The veggies grilling.


Everything about done.


The veggie platter.


My plate.


I liked the steak, thought the sweet potato could have used some drizzled butter over it, and the eggplant was a little tart for me – however the wife and visiting daughter liked them both as they were. It’s just hard to beat baked or pan-fried-in-butter sweet potatoes. All told a pretty good meal.

Any grilling or cooking advice in general is always appreciated. Have a good one. Larry

School Project Wows Grandpop

Alex has a Social Studies project for school due this week and she had been very secretive about what it’s supposed to be or what she plans to do. After our asking about it a few times she said not to worry, as she knew what to do and what she had planned.

Saturday afternoon, she ask to borrow my computer as hers didn’t have the right software on it and she went to work, still being secretive and she was still at it when I went to bed – I turn in early (but I’m writing this at 4am).

She advised she needed to go to Walmart on Sunday to pick up a few things for the project and off she went with her Meme. They came home with several bags full of stuff – which I was told would be for this and several more projects.

Since she had it stored on my computer, I had a chance to look it over before she printed it out and was blown away. She did it about Egypt and had researched it and developed a first class Power Point presentation. I watched her make a few changes and she maneuvered around Power Point and with other sites so quickly it hurt my eyes to watch – she’s a whiz on it and I now know where to go for help. I tried to post one of her Power Point pages but couldn't figure out how and she's not here to help me.

She began the assembly process as soon as she got home about 7:30 Sunday evening and would hardly take the time to eat some dinner and by 9, she was done. This is her at work on putting it together – we couldn’t convince her to use a table and she insisted on using the floor – her favorite venue for all things. We had to put the new puppy in the kennel for this effort.



Here’s a pic of the finished project for which she planned, made all decisions, picked out all materials, and assembled. The only help she asked for was cutting one of the large pieces of paper in half.


Needless to say, I was impressed and am continually amazed at what she can do when she puts her mind to it. If only we could figure out how to motivate her to put even a little of this energy into things she needs to do, but doesn’t necessarily want to – I’m sure if we do figure it out, we can bottle and sell it and make a fortune.

We had a hard frost on the pumpkin this morning, so I guess summer is definately over.

Chili For The Third Straight Night - Yum

For dinner Friday night it was a bowl of chili. Last night it was chili over fresh, hot cornbread topped with cheese and green onions. Tonight, for the final night in this series, it’s chili again, but this time Beverly used the left over cornbread to whip up a layered cornbread salad to go with it, and it was delicious. Here’s the recipe courtesy of WBIR-TV:

Ingredients
1 pkg. ranch dressing mix
1 C. sour cream
1 C. mayonnaise
1 pan cornbread
8 oz chopped green chilis
2 cans kidney or black beans, drained
1 green pepper, chopped
2 bunches green onions, chopped
3 lg tomatoes
2 cans sweet yellow corn, drained
12 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 1/2 C cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions
Combine dressing mix, sour cream and mayo in advance and chill. Add green chilies to cornbread before baking, then bake, cool and crumble cornbread. In a large bowl, layer ingredients in this order: half of the cornbread, kidney beans, green pepper, green onions, half of the salad dressing, the other half of the cornbread, tomatoes, corn, the other half of the salad dressing and the bacon. Top with the cheese. Serves 15-20.
NOTE: if using a cornbread mix, use 2 packages.

And of course a couple of pics – the hole is due to my sampling before I remembered the camera.



My second helping - I really liked it - glad we have alot left over - Bev thought it had a little too much dressing.


The final bowl of chili in this series topped with Cabot cheddar and Fritos, but after tonight, it’s off to the freezer with the remainder.

Pepper Day At The Ranch

I used up the last of my BBQ rub blend and we used the last of the chili powder Friday, so it’s time to make new batches. I’d been drying my paprika and anaheim peppers as I harvested them, and now it’s time to grind and make the spice blends.

I used an Excalibur dehydrator to dry them. It usually takes about 48 hours at 125 degrees to get them good and crisp.

After using a coffee grinder for several years to grind the peppers, I bought this Family Grain Mill – purchased from Pleasant Hill Grain. The advantages of the mill are a much more consistent grind size and it’s a lot quicker. I have a hand crank for it but also bought the adaptor for attaching to our KitchenAid mixer, which makes the process a snap. I wouldn’t want to use it to grind a 50# sack of flour for all my neighbors, but for what I was doing it was far better than the coffee grinder. Here are a couple pics of the set up.



First, I break up the peppers into smaller pieces in my hand so they’ll fit down the feed tube. I had just a few anaheims so I tossed them in the mix.


This is how they looked after a coarse grind pass.


Then I ran them through an intermediate grind.


Lastly I ran them thru on the final grind and they’re ready for blending.



I ended up with 2 1/4 pounds, which at Penzey's prices is about $15 worth. Counting my labor, equipment & materials to raise the transplants, grow them in the garden, harvest-prep-dry, and grind, I probably have $100 per pound in this batch. Humm!

Why do I do this you might ask. Have you ever used paprika as an actual spice or is it used mostly to add color on top of deviled eggs and other dishes. One reason is that store bought paprika has very little flavor compared to mine – which is more like a burst of sweet red pepper in your mouth. There is no comparison between the two and since my rub and chili powder contain lots of it, I have to use the good stuff. I also grow and grind my own chile pepper powder for the same reason.

The whole process took about 1½ hours, but I think I could have done it in two passes – this was my first time using it for peppers. I’m very pleased with the result and as soon as my new supply of dried herbs gets here from Penzey’s Spices, I’ll commence to blending.

Have a great day,

Larry