spice month

Sweet Hot Pepper Relish

There’s lots of small batch pepper relish recipes out in the world. They all say different things; cook for 15 minutes, cook for 30 seconds, use 1/2 cup vinegar, use 3.

This is a mish-mash of a lot of different recipes though the base brine is derived from the Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving. The original is written for 8 cups of produce, but I had six. Remember, it’s okay to pull back on your produce-you’ll just have extra brine. Just never pull back on your acids. I left in the extra acid to account for cooking time.

I like these types of rough relishes for using up vegetables I had in the fridge. I found carrots, red chilis, habaneros, onions, and a handful of bell peppers. Use whatever vegetables you have in the fridge-this would work with no peppers at all. This actually ends up somewhere between pepper relish and chow-chow.

I have to admit, I prepped this batch more like hot pack peppers than a true relish. I didn’t soak my vegetables because I was impatient so I just went the diced pickle route.

Sweet Hot Pepper Relish

Modified from the Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving

6-8 cups (no more than 8 eight cups) chopped vegetables, including at least a couple of hot peppers

2 cups apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup sugar

2 tbl pickling salt

1 tbl pickling spice

If you have the time and the patience, let the vegetables rest in a brine bath (see this post about soaking vegetables for relish). Otherwise, you can just pack your vegetables in a hot pack like pickles. The texture won’t be quite the same, but it’ll work.

Bring everything but the vegetables to a boil. Add vegetables, and boil between 30 seconds-10 minutes. I know that’s a really wide range, but boil to your preferred texture. Or however long it takes you to wander back to your stove. Innocent face.

Pack into prepped jars to within 1/2 inch. Use a slotted spoon, and make sure to bubble your jars.

Process for 10 minutes.

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Taco Soup

I’m still working on my rephotographing old recipes. Taco soup is still one of Mid’s favorite foods, and I make it once or twice a month.

I’m not sure why I’m posting his favorite food on my birthday…but I guess that’s how life works out sometimes.

Taco Soup

1/4 cup crushed tomatoes

1/4 cup water

1 beef bullion cube or 1 beef stock concentrate cube

1/4 cup frozen corn

1/4 cup diced onion

1/4 cup diced bell pepper

1/4 cup kidney beans

1 tea hot sauce

1 tea garlic

1 table taco seasoning

Add tomatoes, water, and beef concentrate to a large saucepan. Bring to a simmer.

While waiting for the tomatoes to simmer, dice peppers and onions. Add to tomatoes, along with corn.

Add seasonings and hot sauce.

Simmer for 20 minutes, then taste and adjust seasoning if you need.

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Taco Pockets

I have to use my pie press five times or Mid’s not going to let me keep it.

So here we are, at project number 2 of the hand pie project.

I do love tacos. I love Mighty Taco, but I don’t love paying for tacos out all the time. And it’s hard to find tacos that have the right heat level for me. Or it’s hot enough, but the flavor is off.

I used beef and Penzey’s chili seasoning for this batch but this recipe would be exceptionally easy to mod to vegetarian. Use whatever you love to put in a taco but leave out the more delicate vegetables like lettuce. Serve those on top with more cheese or Greek yogurt.

Half a pound of meat gave me about 6 pockets, which makes this a great way to use up left overs. Not a lot of meat? Make less pockets.

I bet these would be lovely with a corn dough but I used pie dough.

Taco Pockets

-1/2 pound cooked taco meat, seasoned to your preference

-salsa

-cheese of choice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut out dough to desired size or to the size of your pie press.

Fill with taco meat, cheese and salsa making sure to not overfill pocket. Press edges.

Bake for 30 minutes. Serve with favorite taco toppings.

Black Bean Salsa

I love using fresh tomatoes when I have them, but tomatoes in March in Buffalo are a sad case indeed. Using canned tomatoes is a decent stand in because the flavor tends to be fairly consistent.

This makes a medium to hot salsa the habaneros. Or so I’ve been told, because my reading of heat is skewed. I don’t register anything as hot until it’s almost extra hot or higher (I’ve ordered dishes out as hot as the kitchen will make it). Use a cooler pepper if you don’t like that much bite.

Black Bean Salsa

1 can chopped tomatoes

1/2 can black beans

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 habanero pepper, chopped (not seeded)

1 handful mint leaves, roughly chopped

Drain both tomatoes and beans. Mix everything in a bowl. Let sit at least half an hour for the flavors to develop.

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Strawberry Vanilla Fridge Jam

I’m calling vanilla a baking spice for the month of March.

And I was out of jam for Mid’s sandwiches, so there’s that.

Honey sweet with a sort of rich smoothness from the vanilla, this is one of those beautifully simple jams that just makes a person happy. You can process it, for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner. I just didn’t because I knew I was going to be using it immediately (as in, the next day).

Do use real vanilla. As in, don’t use an imitation vanilla. It’s a lot cheaper if you just make it yourself.

I’m supposed to avoid white sugar, so I swapped out half of the white sugar I normally use for honey. I would have used raw sugar (and have used raw in canning projects before) if I had it in the house. If you scale the recipe up remember to use 1/3 cups honey in place of a cup of sugar.

Strawberry Vanilla Fridge Jam

3 cups whole strawberries

1/3 cup liquid honey

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

1 1/2 tablespoon bottled lemon juice

Let sugars and berries macerate at least 4 hours. I let this batch sit in the fridge closer to 36 hours.

Add vanilla and lemon.

Use a potato masher or an immersion blender to process down the berries a little.

Watching closely and stirring frequently, cook over medium heat in a large saucepan for 15-20 minutes. Watch for set closely; if you dip a spoon into the jam you want it to fall off the spoon as a solid sheet and not in small individual drips. Err on the side of too soft; you can reclaim too solid jam but it’s easier to use a syrup than recook a tight jam.

Place in a jar and store in the fridge. This batch gave me a very generous 3/4 pint.

How to Oven Dry Your Own Peppers

peppers

Here’s the first thing, and I mean this with as much seriousness as anything I’ve ever said on this blog: you need to wear gloves when working with hot peppers. And you need to wear gloves when working with dried peppers. I don’t know why I thought that dried peppers would be different but I was wrong.

Painfully, painfully wrong.

After an hour of milk soaks, olive oil, bandaids because burns don’t like oxygen, hand washing, advil, and a shower to douse my hand in shampoo, the burn finally settled down enough that I could sleep and the burning was completely out by the time I woke up the next morning.

With that out of the way. oven drying peppers is actually really easy.

In an oven no higher than 225, layer your peppers (either cut in half or whole, I did one batch each way) on a cooling rack on a cookie sheet and let hang out in there for 3-6 hours. Make sure to watch them. They need to be brittle and not bendy at all, but my batch of whole peppers are just this side of scorched.

Crush in a blender or by hand and store in a jar.

Apple Molasses

I can’t in good faith call this a recipe, because it’s not.

What it is a way of preserving apples that makes your house smell like heaven on earth, and I honestly want to do this every weekend now just for the way that it made my kitchen smell.

From what I’ve read, this is an old school New England thing. The process is a lot like sugaring (though from what I remember of sugaring, this still smells better than hot maple sap). You place apple cider in a pot, then let it boil down until it’s roughly the consistency of maple syrup or honey. You use it in the same way as maple syrup or honey-in recipes, on pancakes, or in tea.

I didn’t make a lot. I had a bottle of cider in my fridge just taking up space. Neither of us were drinking it. I boiled it over medium for about an hour, which gave me about a quarter pint jar’s worth of syrup. Mine’s hanging out in my fridge, but I’ve seen sources can it. I’m guessing that you could because apples are acidic enough to can in water, but I would really do more digging on that before you can it.

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Habanero Oil

haboil1

Heat and I are not just on speaking terms, we send each other cards on major holidays.

I’m known for three things: the canning, the knitting, and the peppers.

If I can get away with making something hot, I’ll do. I’ve been known to make hot brownies.

This oil is a way of sneaking heat into a dish without an actual pepper. Use it on meat, on a dish like drunken noodles, or in salad dressing.

Oil preserving can be a little touchy. It’s not nearly as shelf stable as canning, so make small batches and store in the fridge. Try to make a small enough amount that you can use in a week or two. Sources vary on whether or not you can store at room temperature, but I prefer to err on the side of caution and store in the fridge. Make sure everything is as dry as possible to keep as much water out of the oil as possible.

Another word of caution: habs can bite. Wear gloves while chopping or wash your hands with milk after.

Habanero Oil

1 cup olive oil

3 habaneros with the stem end removed, but not chopped

Over low heat, bring oil to 140-200 degrees. Use a candy thermometer. Drop in peppers, and let cook 10 minutes or so.

Cool slightly and carefully strain through paper towel or a kitchen cloth into a jar. Cool and store covered in the fridge.

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Caramel Apple Jam

*No Second Weekend Giveaway this month. I wasn’t home long enough this weekend to prep the yarn that I wanted to give away.

Cinnamon is totally a baking spice, therefore, it counts for Spice Month. I’ve been starting to work on my 2014 canning, and this one will be on my rotation again.

Working with jam when it’s this dry can be a little touchy, so if you’re like me and find that one of your batches turned to gummies you can actually salvage overly tight jam.

Caramel Apple Jam

4 to 4 1/2 cups apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

2 cups sugar, split between white and brown -or- 2 cups sugar + scant 1/2 tea dark molasses

pinch cinnamon

2 table lemon juice (if planning on canning, can be omitted if using as a fridge or freezer jam)

Let sugars and apples sit overnight in the fridge.

Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring often. After 20-25 minutes boiling time, place into heat resistant containers and leave in the fridge.

If canning, fill to within 1/4 inch of the top of the jar. Process for 10 minutes.

I did BWB process these jars. If you are not familiar with how to boiling water bath process food for canning, please make sure to read over a source like the Ball Blue Book or the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Canning is not particularly difficult, but it’s also not a process that you should take lightly. This recipe assumes you know the basics of boiling water bath canning. If you are not comfortable with canning, this recipe can be stored in the freezer for 1 year.

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Firestarter

Camera 360

I posted this recipe a couple of years ago, but this is still one of my favorite recipes to can. This is also one of my most popular canning projects, along with the apple-pear jam and the cyser style apples from last fall. I can’t keep jars of any of these three recipes in the house.

I do tend to use more peppers in the recipe now, but if you’re not a heat freak like me, then start with the recommended amount and go from there.

I want to try this with different fruits and peppers. I have some peppers called ring of fire in the freezer that I want to use with strawberries. Some women have a chocolate hoard in their freezers. I have hot peppers.

Firestarter Jam (Peach-Scotch Bonnet Jam)

3 cups sliced peaches

1 seeded, diced scotch bonnet pepper- I really would seed it. The heat level on this isn’t unbearable for me, but I don’t think I would leave the seeds in there either. If you can’t get a scotch bonnet, try a couple bird’s eye peppers or a habanero.

scant 1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 table bottled lemon juice

Prep 3 quarter pint jars for boiling water bath canning.

In a large saucepan, bring fruit, sugar, pepper, and lemon to a hard boil. After 10 minutes of boiling check for gel by placing a plate in the freezer. Place a small amount of jam on the plate and freeze for 30 seconds. When you can run your finger through the jam and it holds it shape without running together, it’s gelled.

Fill jars and process for 10 minutes using a boiling water canner. Or, you can freeze the jam for up to one year.

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