FINALLY!
The moment I have been patiently waiting for has finally arrived. My peppers are starting to turn red! I know it always takes a long time for them to do this, but this year it seems like it has taken a lot longer than usual. We have had some freaky weather what with the cooler spring, and now we have had higher than normal temperatures lately. So I am just glad that they are finally turning color. Tonight I plan to sauté several Shishito peppers in my cast iron fry pan on the grill, to go along with our lamb burgers.
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| Shishito pepper on left, Jalapeno pepper on right |
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| Shishitos destined for the fry pan |
While we are on the subject of the garden, I just have to mention that the one little pepper on the Little Hab is getting bigger! And, as if that wasn't good enough news, there is another one coming on! I talk to it every time I go out to the garden (yeah, I'm weird like that), and I tell it to please, please, please give me just ONE ripe less-heat Zavory Habanero pepper before the season ends. So far, the little plant is complying with my request.
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| I just might get a ripe one yet! |
Something else of note out in the garden is that we finally have a bloom on our only big sunflower plant out there. I planted quite a few sunflower plants around the back planting area in early summer, but only one has produced a flower. However, this is one of those really big-headed sunflowers. I didn't get any of the Autumn Beauty (red) sunflowers to come up, so I guess I will have to settle for this one. It's about seven feet tall and the flower is probably ten inches across the petals.
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| Mammoth Sunflower in back yard |
We have a sunflower in the front yard that is even taller than this one. It is almost as tall as the peak in the roof of our garage. We have such a mass of sunflowers in front that we can hardly get back and forth through them to get from the front door to the driveway!
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| Our tallest sunflower, so far |
JALAPENO-INFUSED VODKA UPDATE
If you read my blog last week you will remember that I made some vodka infused with a couple of jalapeno peppers. Well, Friday night I decided to make myself a Bloody Mary using that vodka. I don't think I had ever had a Bloody Mary before, but I came across a recipe that called for a frozen ripe tomato off the vine, as well as tomato juice, so I went with that. I cut up one of my Cherokee Carbon tomatoes and put it in the freezer on Friday morning. When cocktail hour rolled around, I put the frozen tomato and the tomato juice, plus a few other ingredients into my blender and let it rip. The resulting cocktail was extremely thick. I do have to say that I wasn't expecting the drink to be as hot as it was. I had only let the jalapeno pepper infuse into the vodka for two and a half days. The recipe said to infuse it for at least three days, but warned against leaving it in any longer than a week. I'm here to say that I don't see how anybody could possibly drink it if it infused for a full week! Although the flavor was good, it was very, very hot. I could only stand to drink one of them. But, not to be outdone by a measly couple of jalapeno peppers, I decided to make a Vodka Tonic with the infused liquor on Saturday night. It must have been the fact that the tomato juice helped cut the heat, because this drink was even hotter than the Bloody Mary! I only made it past a few sips before I relented and made myself a proper Gin & Tonic drink. I froze the rest of the Vodka Tonic in an ice cube tray. If I ever get bold enough, I may try using one in a drink. I'm not sure I will ever be that bold. All I can say is, "Don't try this at home."
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| Bloody Mary...hotter than H-E Double Toothpicks! |
MORE DEHYDRATING
I'm still on the dehydrating kick as it is a good way to preserve all of those Armenian Cucumbers that are coming off the garden right now. This week, though, I tried something a little bit different, dehydrating apple slices. Since we live in the heart of Washington Apple Country, we can get really good apples fairly cheap when in season. They are just starting to get some in at the local fruit shops, so Linda got a few extra this week for us to try dehydrating. I put them on last night around 7:00 and let the dehydrator run all night. When we got up this morning I checked on them and they were not crispy yet, but still tasted good. So we left two trays in the dehydrator for another hour and took out two trays to cool. They are really tasty, almost like candy. We will definitely be doing more of them.
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| Apple chips on left, Armenian Cucumber chips on right |
MYSTERIOUS HOLES IN THE YARD
When we first moved here we would sometimes see little holes in the yard where there was no grass. We couldn't figure out what the heck was making these holes. They were more like round indentations in the ground. (I thought maybe it was aliens, but Linda didn't think so). It wasn't too long before we found out the source of these strange holes. Take a look at this video to see what we discovered.
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl is out in the garden almost all day long. I can't seem to get a shot of her anywhere else, doing anything other than lazing around! Here she is fussing at me for waking her up.
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| "Meow!" |
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