Yeah, for years I've had a plastic "Ronco" type piece of shit that never worked properly, so I was looking to up the game a bit.
I hate that all the cheap intro ones are plastic. I really don't like cooking on or in plastic at all, even if it's BPA free or whatever the rate as food grade. I almost picked up a super cheap vertical flow Presto model but I think this thing will get a lot of use so I'd rather get one that ticks certain boxes and be happy with it semi long term. Your sale price is a bit more than what I was originally budgeting for this purchase but it is so much more bang for your buck, I would have picked it up too and called it my early bday present or something.
I do a lot of experimental cooking, like, "What happens if I put this in this?" So the short answer is "everything." I use it a lot on grilled chicken breast and pork chops. I even added some in when I was making pork fried rice. Something about the sweet of the mint offsets the otherwise savory flavors and changes things up a bit.
Oops. I forgot to pick peppers for several days and have a problem on my hands now. Did you know if you leave a pickling cucumber on the vine too long it will turn orange and begin to blush into red? Oops. I don't even know if those two are edible. I did finally pull the trigger on a food dehydrator. I am really excited to make chile powder with my copious amounts of extra hot jalapenos, and maybe I'll make a bunch of pickles and then dehydrate them for pickle seasoning. First and foremost, gotta make some sun dried tomatoes.
Maybe a dumb question, but for those of you who have used a dehydrator on hot peppers.... I need to put the appliance outside, don't I?
I will never process hot peppers inside ever again... dehydrator included. (I put my last, POS, dehydrator in the shop so at least it was indoors but not stinking up the house). I made my own sirace once inside and it was like I pepper sprayed myself. Now that I have a side burner on the bbq, it'll all be done outside on the deck.
Good to have confirmation on that. The jalapenos are seriously hot, and I just picked a couple Carolina reapers, too...
This morning I picked 5lbs of jalapenos, a mash of anaheims and some tomatoes, including my largest yet at 1lb. It split a bit on the bottom. I put away 7 quart jars of eggs in lime and pickled 6 small jars/ 1.25lbs of jalapneos today. I also made some jalapeno poppers with dinner. These are not as hot as that batch I made a couple weeks ago... pleasantly and noticeably spicy but not killing my entire face. I've got about 4lbs left and have a dehydrator coming either Monday or Tuesday, and plan to dehydrate as much as I can cram in 1 batch and then freeze the rest. I'll be roasting and jarring the anaheim chiles as well as dehydrating some tomatoes. There's a fuckton of peppers left out there growing. I am already making plans to top my tomato plants so that what's out there matures to a good size by the time the weather gets too cool. I'm SUPER thrilled about the garden so far this year.
It was a good year for spuds: I need to spread them out in the basement to harden off still. I’m starting to yank plants that are either no longer producing or I have enough from. Zucchini for example.
I've yanked a few plants as well. One zucchini, a few brussel sprouts. I planted way too close and they are crowding each other, plus I had an aphid problem that has really fucked up a couple of them. Your spuds are beautiful. Did you weigh them?
I had to prop up the limbs of our peach trees even more: They should start ripening soon and when they do, I'm gonna be freezing some of them. And then of course we'll be giving a shitload away. I cannot believe how loaded these and our apple trees are this year. If nothing else, we'll be hauling apples up to my parent's house and making cider. My Dad bought an old school press several years ago and it works great.
Nice! That is amazing.What was the approximate area that you grew your potatoes? I did reds in sacks and then forgot to add enough soil so my yields, while worthwhile, were not what they could be. Just wondering what the ideals look like. Yesterday I gave the tomatoes a major haircut to encourage bigger fruits, and fertilized the day before that. I'll try more fertilizer next week as well and am planning on topping the plants the first week of September, since first frost is on average October 1-10 and I read that topping should be done about 4 weeks before frost. This pic does not capture how much is out there. It's stupid and I'm excited.
It pays to use the right tomato for the right job. I had a lot of beefsteaks. About double the amount shown in that above pic, not sure the weight. 4-5lbs? I cooked it down for sauce today and it made about 2c of sauce. I mean, it tastes so fucking good, but man. So much water to cook off. The San marzanos yield more sauce for the same weight.
Yep... I did huge beefsteaks and romas this year for exactly that reason... freeze the romas for sauces, keep the others for toasted tomato sammiches, tomato soup, etc.
I really love the flavor of these beef steaks but had so many that I really needed to use them before they went bad. They make an excellent sauce but they yield is really poor. I'll get more creative in the future before I try sauce again with them.
Yeah, I'm planning on dehydrating the excess beefsteaks. We'll see how that goes, but I have to think that the flavour will be awesome.
That was the plan for me, too, but my goddamn mother flipping dehydrator's delivery has been delayed. Prime shipping my ASS. I guess that's what I get for buying an open box.