Country Living Skills

The canning season has begun, quite obviously… We started this year with hot peppers in oil, about 6 pints of them. We used green chili peppers, Hungarian Wax peppers, and a few Romance and Bell Peppers too. Here is the recipe:

HOT PEPPERS IN OIL

Mix and boil together:

• 1/2 water and
• 1/2 vinegar
• 1/4 cup salt

As for the amount of water and vinegar, you need enough to cover the amount of peppers you have.

Cut peppers into rings, and it helps a lot to wear gloves when cutting up the hot varieties. Put the pepper rings in a large sauce pan or a Turkey roaster. When the mixture boils, it over the peppers, and let the peppers stand in the liquid for 24 hours.

The next day, drain well, but do not rinse. Put the peppers in canning jars, squeeze surplus liquid out, tamp peppers down and layer with garlic, oregano and basil. Then add oil to rim, and insert a wooden spoon handle between peppers and jar to release trapped air, moving the spoon around the jar. Add more oil if needed. We used olive oil fro one half of our jars and vegetable oil for the other.

The peppers will keep without processing. Enjoy

We just wanted to share a picture from our garden

Via: Countryside & Small Stock Journal

(…) If you’ve got a garden plot rolling already you’re in good stead. While we normally have a long growing season here in southwest Missouri, we are about a month behind schedule because of the massive flooding and late frosts—but we’ll still give it the old college try.

If you don’t have a garden, help out the folks who do this for a living (CSAs, produce farms, etc.) and buy some of their stuff on bulk sale. You’ll be happy with your bargain and they’ll be happy to sell their perishable stuff while it’s still fresh.

Over the past decade, Jimmie and I at Timberlakes Farm grew veggies to supply upscale restaurants plus our own household’s yearly needs. But, as many of you already know, when that flush of zucchini, other squash, peppers and tomatoes ripens, you’ll feel there’s enough fresh produce to serve the entire armed forces! Most growers, like us, prefer to sell it at a “fresh” bulk-discount price to someone who can take advantage of it and feed a family, than to let it spoil and get dumped onto a compost pile or go to waste.

In either instance, the biggest question that always raises its ugly head is: how much do I have to grow (or purchase) to supply my family’s food needs throughout the year? Since I’ve done this for so long (first to feed me and the two kids [as little tykes] and eventually just the two of us seniors—Jimmie and me), I’ll give you the best average to yield a year’s supply of stocked food for a household of four. (I am saying “average” because of the varying ages, appetites, and menu preferences that come into play.)

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