Monday, October 28, 2019

Harvest Monday - 28 October 2019

I was inspired by last week's Harvest Monday post by Dave, the wonderful host, in which he smoked peppers to make chile powder. Having an abundance of peppers, I decided to do it myself!

I picked all the remaining Maule's Red Hot cayennes (left, below), and Anaheim-type peppers.


And I picked whatever yellow(ish) hot peppers I could find, and added them to what I had in the fridge.


The yellowish ones are Brazilian Starfish, Hot Lemon, and Habaneros. They went into a separate batch. The red ones joined the cayennes in another batch, and the Anaheims made their own batch.

I fired up the smoker and did the three batches consecutively. The last batch was the Anaheims, which were joined by some thin pork chops. Boy did those taste great! Each batch took 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Some came out crisp, others were leathery.

The next day The Kitchen Goddess finished drying them in the oven. It made the kitchen smell like a campfire, but it was woodsy and pleasant!

Then, using a new dedicated spice mill, she ground up the separate batches to make the finished product, smoky hot chile powder. While she was at it, she ground up our dehydrated garlic (in the back below).


I'd say the results were a success! I had been thinking I grew way too many peppers this year, but with this and the hot sauces it seems like the right amount after all.

TKG got an enhancement to her hand-cranked "Wondermill Jr." grain mill. It's a socket that replaces the handle with the ability to use an electric drill. She was able to grind up some of our dried corn in a fraction of the time and with no stress on her shoulder. Here are different cornmeal grades running from coarse to very fine.

Cornmeal
And there was enough to make me the dessert I was craving, Indian Pudding. Guess I was a good boy after all, or fooled her anyway.

Indian Pudding
This was the perfect accompaniment to another regional favorite we had: New England Boiled Dinner. Trust me, it tastes better than it sounds! It's basically corned beef and cabbage with added vegetables. She used carrots, onions, and potatoes. Nice to know that everything except the meat came from our garden.

That's really all to report this week. We still have not had a frost, but I'm starting to remove all the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants anyway. Thanks for reading!

4 comments:

  1. I'm so glad the smoked peppers worked out for you! I think it is a great way to use those extra peppers, and I find the powder is do useful. I keep at least one jar of hot and one jar of sweet on the table to use for seasoning there. I little bit perks up so many dishes.

    When I was a poor young single guy, I ate a lot of boiled dinners! Mostly the corned beef was the sliced deli variety, and sometimes the dinner was meatless, but it was something I ate a lot of.

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  2. Hi there. Is your Indian Pudding made with milk and sugar, cinnamon etc. Maybe a bit like rice pudding? And the Boiled Dinner reminds me of our Corned Beef Hash (and equally appetising name for something truly delicious, especially with a fried egg on top!) IT is always good to see your harvests transformed into something so storeable... never thought of grinding dried garlic

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    Replies
    1. Hi Kathy. The Indian Pudding is basically a custard made with cornmeal, so...eggs, milk, cornmeal. Then ginger and nutmeg. No cinnamon. Sweetened with molasses or maple syrup. It's then baked in a water bath so it doesn't get crunchy on the bottom.

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