Spicy

Goodness, I guess its been a while since I posted. So much for those goals......

So earlier this summer, Peter introduced me to pickling carrots and beets. Little did he know the food preservation monster he was creating. Since then, we've done more carrots and beets (though sadly not as many as I'd like), pickled peppers, cucumbers, crabapple jelly (from our tree) and last night, this hot pepper jelly:


I know its probably not something most people who knew me as a child would think I'd make into jelly, but we had all these peppers from our box, as well as the obligatory onion laying around and it sounded interesting to say the least.

My mother is probably reading this, jaw dropped in amazement because I was the kid (and lets face it, college student as well) who subsisted pretty much on cheese and bread, or cheese and pasta, or any other cheese/starch combination. I did not eat vegetables, except potatoes (duh, cheese and starch), cucumbers, corn, and beans. I ate the same thing everyday for lunch throughout junior high school-- refried beans and (you guessed it) cheese in a tortilla, and the same thing everday for lunch in senior high school-- two rice cakes with peanut butter (and no healthy PB back then, I was all about the jif) and a kiwi fruit.

I branched out into meat in college, steak only at first, and then in Bethel just perhaps 4 years ago, I tried my first hamburger (oh god was it good). I've slowly incorporated more and more veggies to my diet, first red peppers, then broccoli, then eggplant, spinach etc. This year was the first year for beets, which I love more than life itself when they are mashed up with potatoes and fried into little patties, or mixed with shredded cabbage and carrots and a little blue cheese. I could fantasize about beets all day....Dwight Shrute does at least have beet farming going for himself.

But back to the jelly and food preservation....Last weekend we were at Title Wave, taking a breather from tiling the floor. Normally we get our coffees and head over from Kaladi, I beeline for the knitting and sewing books and Peter heads to architecture. Well imagine my surprise when I discovered the knitting and sewing section is now located next to the cookbooks, which means I will likely never make it into the other side of the store anymore. As I perused the shelves, my eyes were drawn to the spine of this gem, and since I had a gift card burning a hole in my wallet I snatched it up. The book is great, she's got explanations for all those things that you've always been told to do/not to do, and there are a number of recipes with very clear directions for how to properly process and preserve.

The book is put out by Storey publishing, who also did this favorite of mine, as well as recent books by the harlot. They emphasize down-home, do it yourself type books and I think I may be turning into one of their biggest fans. I've been pouring over the canning book all week, planning my next foray into food preservation and I'm thinking I might need to add a pressure canner to the wedding registry (which I am keeping by the way).

Now, since the theme of today's blog is food preservation, everyone please think good thoughts for Tiffany, who is presenting and interviewing in Fairbanks this week for a big old grant from Alaska Marketplace to make chum salmon jerky goodness for Alaskans. Good Luck Tiffany!