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

Last night we dug up our early potatoes, the dark red Norland, and they turned out very well. we got roughly 10 lbs and will eat the small ones tonight with salted butter and poached eggs.

No idea how to make poached eggs ? Here is how (plan 2 eggs per person):

• Fill medium size skillet with water, 3 inches high. Skillet should have a lid
• Set heat on high, bring water to a boil
• Crack eggs individually in small containers (cups, for example)
• When water boils, add 1 tbsp of plain vinegar and some salt to the water
• Let the eggs slide into the water by lowering the lip of the egg-cup 1/2 inch below the water surface and then tilt to let the egg slide out, put lid back on quickly and shut off the heat
• Let sit for 3 minutes for medium-firm yolks
• Remove lid, take out poached eggs. If you don’t like the taste of vinegar on them, put them in a bowl of cold water first to stop the cooking process and wash off the vinegar
• Enjoy with buttered toast or, like we will, with wonderful new dark red Norland potatoes.