Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Harvests are slowing down here, as we transition from summer to fall. The peppers are still ripening fast and furious though, and they are keeping me busy. I started a batch of hot sauce with a mix of Maule’s Red Hot and Aji Amarillo, plus a few of the Not Frigitello peppers that proved to be hot and not sweet as they should be.
Senorita jalapeno and Maule’s Red Hot peppers
I also got enough of the Senorita and Fooled You jalapeno peppers to smoke and turn into chipotles. I smoked a test batch of the Senorita peppers a couple of weeks ago, and they made a tasty chipotle powder that was milder in heat than that I made last year. It’s still plenty hot, just a bit less so! The Fooled You jalapenos have no heat, and adding a few of them should lower the overall heat level a notch or two.
peppers for smoking
The first of the Malawi Piquante peppers are ripening now too, at least the ones on the container grown plant. I pickled these along with a few more of the Aji Golden peppers in a sweet brine. The Malawi Piquante peppers are ‘similar’ to the ones used to make the pricey, trademarked Peppadew peppers you can find on salad bars and in grocery stores.
Fooled You jalapeno and Malawi Piquante peppers
In the sweet pepper department, the yellow Escamillo and red Carmen are ripening now. They are both bull’s horn peppers and AAS Winners, and Escamillo may be the best tasting yellow sweet pepper I have ever grown. Carmen is a long time favorite here, but I can see Escamillo becoming a favorite too. I have already made a note on my 2017 plans to grow more of these two! Meanwhile we will enjoy eating these, some of which I grilled and others I used in a quinoa ‘fried rice’ dish I cooked up last week.
Escamillo and Carmen peppers
It’s not all peppers here though. I cut the first of the fall kale last week, starting with the White Russian. The kale will be sweeter when really cold weather arrives, but this was pretty tasty too, especially when we haven’t had any kale for a few months. The cabbage moths have really been active here, and I’ve been spraying a neem oil/Bt mix to keep the caterpillars controlled.
White Russian kale
Most of the tomato plants are taking a break, but I’m still finding enough of the small fruited ones for salads and such. I got a nice bunch of Sunrise Bumblebee and Purple Bumblebee to add to a salad we had for lunch one day.
Sunrise Bumblebee and Purple Bumblebee tomatoes
I baked two of the Early Butternut squashes to use in a couple of dishes last week. One was a Pumpkin Cake recipe from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book that uses a mix of whole wheat and barley flours. This recipe is pretty close, though I used less sugar and varied the spices a bit.
baked Early Butternut squash
The other dish was a pasta creation using the pumpkin puree for sauce along with whole grain farro penne, a bit of the White Russian kale, chicken sausage, and seasoned with garlic and fresh garden sage. I think it tasted better than it looked, and satisfied my craving for both butternut squash and pasta without requiring a lot of kitchen time. Of course then we had pumpkin cake for dessert! I put the rest of the cake in the freezer to enjoy later before I ate it all up.
pasta with butternut sauce and kale
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
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