Archive for the ‘hot peppers’ Tag
Fresh and delicious shrimp.
Do these shrimp look good to you? They were just as delicious as you might think or so says my better-half. She’s a shrimp junkie going back many years and considers herself an expert. I tried just one and really couldn’t disagree.
Summer time meals are something special around here and are to be enjoyed and relished whenever possible. While I’m not a big fan of shrimp or lobster I do love just about everything else that the ocean has too offer. I experiment when possible to come up with new flavors and textures with my seafood. This week we picked up those shrimp and a large haddock fillet just for me.
To make things a little more interesting I poached the fillet in habanero wine. I made this wine a few years back and it carries with it a delicious flavor and heat. Once the poaching was completed the fillets were dropped onto the grill to give them a little crispiness.
Just sooooo good.
Then it’s off to the table with a side of fresh corn-on-the-cob and a glass of Chardonnay. Cherry tomatoes picked just before the meal and chilled are a perfect addition. That beer in the picture belongs to my better-half. She considers any beer she drinks as her Chardonnay.
The garden continues to flourish now that we’ve had a few days of rain to help perk things up. I picked this collection of hot peppers (Serrano, Fresno, jalapeno, and Anaheim’s) today because tomorrow is salsa day and I want them as fresh and hot as I can get.
I’ll be slicing and dicing all of the other salsa ingredients this evening in preparation for tomorrow. This is the best part of Summer for me without a doubt.
OLE!
It’s the last of July already. It’s a little hard to believe that summer is more than half over. This dry spell we’ve been having for the last month is a minor annoyance but without nightly watering the garden will be burnt out. That little bit of water accomplishes miracles as you will see in the following pictures.
These Mammoth sunflowers will eventually reach 8 or 9 feet tall.
The sunflowers will be absolutely shredded by the hundreds of birds we feed regularly. They wait all summer for the sunflowers to go to seed and then it’s a bird free-for-all. This large bushy clump of plants in the next photo is, believe it or not, asparagus. The plants must be left alone for three years until they are firmly established before we can start harvesting the spears. Next Spring we’ll finally get to eat some delicious home-grown asparagus.
Sautéed in butter . . . there’s nothing better.
These last three photo are just general photos of the entire garden in three sections. As you can see in this first one the herbs are plentiful and I’ll be drying them steadily starting in about four weeks.
This next photo is one of the large frames. This will be the last year we grow veggies here. Starting next Spring it will be converted to nothing but herbs.
This final photo is a large frame filled with cherry tomatoes, green beans, rhubarb, asparagus, and a selection of hot peppers. The jalapeños are thriving this year.
That’s the update for the month of July. Here’s one last photo in my continuing war with the yellow-jackets, This nest was found under our deck after both of us had been stung as we walked by. I won this battle but the war will continue.
There you have it. Another month gone so quickly. I can almost smell Winter and the snow that will follow.
I was beginning to wonder if Spring would ever arrive but as always it has. Finally the fear of frost has passed and we can start getting serious about gardening. Todays posting will be a few miscellaneous items about the garden and other things. Our day today has already been planned and as soon as I leave this computer I’ll be back playing in the dirt once again.
My first item concerns something I mentioned in a recent post about my new favorite drink, the Hot Pepper Margarita. I collected all of the ingredients needed to get things rolling and here it is. This photo was taken after two days of the peppers soaking in tequila.
I can already seen the peppers losing their colors as the tequila bleaches them and it won’t be long before it will be ready for use. One more week and then I’ll strain the tequila and put it back into it’s bottles. Then the fun can begin.
I began planting in earnest this week with zucchinis, cucumbers, onions, kohlrabi’s, and eggplant. Later today I’ll finish up with tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, Serrano peppers, Thai peppers, and Kung Pao peppers. Now that the nights are warming up the peppers should flourish.
I began my night time skunk patrol this week. He made his first stinky visit a few days ago and has been digging up the ground in and around the garden already. The fence will keep him out of the larger frames but if he insists on causing problem in the unprotected frames he’ll be risking his stinky and smelly life. My new rifle has been cleaned and oiled and is ready for action. “Go ahead sucker . . . make my day.”
Here’s an update wide angle photo of the garden as it begins to grow.
THANK GOD IT’S FINALLY SPRING
Before I get started today I need to make a declaration. I LOVE HOT PEPPERS! It’s my opinion that almost everything is improved if you can make it hotter. I make a lot of salsa’s and chili’s and have upwards of six really excellent recipes using an assortment of hot peppers. I grow some of my own when possible and I’ll buy from almost any source when certain peppers aren’t available locally.
I received some bad news a few days ago concerning an ex-loved one who passed away. I was feeling a little blue after receiving the news. My better-half suggested we go out for dinner and where better than a Mexican restaurant to look for therapy. We’ve been visiting this restaurant for years and we knew the food would be excellent. Not only could I people watch for a while but I could also eat all of the smoking hot food I could handle. A proper atmosphere to rid myself of the blues.
I’ve told you all of these boring facts about myself so you’ll understand the rest of this story. As we waited for our food to arrive a new bartender appeared and began chatting with everyone. He and I got into a friendly discussion about our love of hot food when he surprised me. He pulled a large jar from under the bar that was filled with tequila. Floating in the the tequila was an assortment of hot peppers, habanero’s, Serrano’s, and jalapeño’s. The tequila had been soaking up all of that lovely flavor and hotness for a week. He dared me to try his latest creation, the “Hot Pepper Margarita”. I couldn’t refuse and look like a coward so I took a long pull on the straw after salting my tongue and lips.
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “taking ones breath away”. That’s exactly what that margarita did. It was a little sweet and hot enough to make me gasp. It was freaking delicious. Little did I know that I was first customer dumb enough to try it. I was so dumb in fact I tried it again and again. My head was sweating, my mouth was burning, and I was in heaven.
Now you know why I have this mother-of-all hangovers this morning. I stumbled into the kitchen last night around 3:00am badly in need of a glass or two of cold water. The water was so cooling and delicious but tasted strangely familiar . . . just like jalapeños. I’m now on my third cup of coffee as I sit here writing this and it too tastes just like jalapeños.
Don’t get me wrong . . . I’m not complaining in the least. I can’t wait to get back on my feet and do it all over again . . . in a week or two.
I’m going out later today to make a few purchases of my own. Two bottles of tequila, habanero peppers, Serrano peppers, and a few jalapeño peppers. I’ll be making my own hot pepper infusion to serve a perfect Hot Pepper Margarita to any of our summer visitors.
PASS THE ADVIL PLEASE.
Even though the nights remain cool it would appear that Mother Nature is beginning to cooperate. The hard frosts have stopped and the temperatures have been well above freezing at night. It’s time to get busy planting a few items that aren’t effected as much by the cooler temperatures. As you can see here the rhubarb could care less about the weather. It’s up and going strong.
With that in mind I purchased two more small rhubarb plants to fill in the frame a little. You just can’t have enough rhubarb because regardless of what you use it for . . . it’s delicious.
The herb garden is coming along nicely but I lost a few plants over the winter. I’m not sure why but two of them had been around for years and I hated to see them go. Nothing I can do but replace them.
These items were planted next. Three parsley plants, three lavenders, and two spinach.
As you look at the photo’s you can see chives growing damn near everywhere. Regardless of the weather you can’t seem to slow them down much. We’ll have bushels to harvest once again this year.
It just felt so good to be digging around in the dirt for a few minutes. Next week I’ll be heading to our local nursery to pick up some lettuces and any thing else that catches my eye. I try to be guided by what the nurseryman advises when it comes to early plantings. I’ve paid a serious price in years past by not listening to him. The hot peppers and tomatoes will have to wait a few more weeks when the danger of frost is completely gone.
THE FUN HAS BEGUN
This stretch of cold and rainy weather has pretty much kept me in the house for the last few days. I was starting to climb the walls a bit when I received a call from my better-half from work to discuss arrangements for dinner. I assumed from the call that she wasn’t interested in cooking and needed me to help out a little. She suggested that maybe just maybe I could make a batch of my chili.
After agreeing I checked my latest recipe for the necessary ingredients and I was out the door and on my way to get them. You need to understand something important, when I make a batch of chili I make a huge batch. My normal recipes result in upwards of ten quarts and sometime even more. It was a quick shopping trip and I returned home and got to work.
This was a new recipe I created after tasting the chili pictured below during one of our luncheon forays to Kennebunkport, Maine. That chili contained a lot of cheese and a healthy number of calories due to the ground beef and oils used in preparation. As you can see it looks incredible and tasted even better.
‘Thanks Federal Jack’
I substituted a mixture of ground chicken and turkey to replace the beef, then eliminated the oil by browning the meat in Smart Balance. It was then a simple matter of adding the remaining ingredients and spices and cooking it for a few minutes.
Most of the state of Texas would string me up by my heels for ever calling my chili, Chili. Fortunately I cook and flavor foods so they taste good to me. I like my chili super hot and use a mixture of Cayenne and Habanero peppers that bring it to life in a big way. I also use a selection of beans with different flavors and textures which apparently is a big NO NO in chili cooking circles. Just to add insult to injury I always, regardless of the ingredients, add diced potatoes. Strikes two and three as far as Texas is concerned.
A short time later I had my finished product, a batch of Black Bean & Corn chili, and to hell with all of you chili purists. It tastes exactly the way I wanted, hot as blazes, with no red meat or oil used. It looks a little like the restaurant version but certainly has more flavor and an increased level of heat. As is usually the case most restaurants serve a medium heat chili unless it happens to be a Mexican restaurant. Here it is.
We had a couple of bowls each for dinner that night and loved it. We then packaged up the rest for freezing which should supply us with five or six hearty meals this winter. Life is good.
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