Category: Food

I made a batch of homemade Sriracha sauce over the last week. It's pretty easy - basically you puree the peppers and some other ingredients, put it in a jar, then let it ferment at room temperature for a week. After that you just bring it to a boil with some vinegar, force it through a strainer, and bottle it. Looking forward to putting some on whatever we eat for dinner! If it ends up being pretty good I think I'm going to make a bigger batch sometime soon so I've got some to give away) and make up some fun labels to print for the bottles.

Ryan slept over a couple of weeks ago, and we all made ice cream sundaes for dessert. No real story - just a pair of cute pictures.

I made these as a dessert for the kids after Thanksgiving dinner. I saw a picture of them online, and decided to try them. They turned out pretty good, all things considered. They've got candy corn feathers and noses, Oreo cook bases, a Whopper for a head, and a Reese's Cup for a body. The kids loved them!

The Thai peppers that I grew over the summer are super-hot, and I had way too many. So I'm trying to dry them out so I can crush them and use them to cook with. So far, so good. They are getting nice and dry and crispy. I want to make sure that they are completely dry before I crush them, because if I do it too soon and they still have any moisture in them, they'll mold in the jar - that actually happened to me last year with some Cayenne peppers I tried to dry.

On Sunday, I had the kids all to myself. For dinner, we made pancakes. But not just any pancakes. We had, as Carter now calls them, "Magic Pancakes". I had seen a video online somewhere of someone doing this, and decided to give it a try. What you do is mix up some pancake batter, pour it into several squeeze bottles, add some food coloring, and 'draw' the pancakes right on the griddle. It's easier to see than to explain, but the pictures below should give you the idea. The kids went nuts for these pancakes! They each ate at least five pancakes, which is an all-time record for them both. They stood on chairs at the counter so they could watch me make them, and request what they wanted. After dinner, they were both so full that they actually turned down dessert - another first for them.

This is a shot what is a 'typical' weekly haul from the garden. It's been consistently this much every week for about the last five or six weeks. As you can imagine, I am drowning in produce - especially hot peppers. My freezer is full almost to overflowing with bags and bags of hot peppers. I need to decide what I am going to do with all of them. Going to pickle some, make some salsa with others, make a chile, and after that, I may have to get creative. Any ideas?

So, mixed - but better - results again this year, so far. This year I smartened up and starting fertilizing everything once a week, with excellent results. Here's the rundown: Bulb onions, garlic, cucumbers: bust - last year it was too much rain that killed them. This year, it was too little. Next year I will plant them closer to the house so I can reach them with the hose. Tomatoes: Success! We've eaten a few dozen of the cherry tomatoes already, and several of the larger tomatoes are only a few days from being picked. Hot Peppers: Unmitigated success! Growing several varities this year, to see what I like best - Jalapeno, Serrano, Pablo Ancho, Cayenne, Hot Banana, Thai, Anahiem, and Chili Red. I've already had to start pickling the jalapenos - they are growing way too fast for me to keep up with eating them, even when I give a bunch away.

I don't have any pictures yet of the finished syrup, but the past two Sundays in a row I've boiled down that week's sap into some delicious maple syrup. It's nice and sweet and maple-y, and it's got a background flavor that I would swear tastes just like vanilla. It turns out that the boiling down takes a long time. But all told we've managed to produce about 3 pints of syrup to date. If the weather keeps doing what it's doing, I'll probably get another 1.5 - 2 pints this weekend. If we end up with more that we can use, I think I might try making some maple sugar candy sometime soon.

Last fall, I decided that I would try to tap some of maple trees this year, and see if we can make some homemade maple syrup. Last week, I tapped the trees. Instead of the traditional splies-and-bucket approach, I'm trying something I saw others in the area do last year - covered 5-gallon buckets with polyethylene tubing. I tapped the trees on Wednesday and Thursday night, and when I checked yesterday afternoon there was already sap in a some of the buckets. Not a ton yet, but it's a start. And it's still pretty early in the season. If there is enough sap in the buckets when I check today, our first syrup-production experiment may take place this afternoon. The sap has to be boiled down into syrup within 7 days of collection, so I can't just let it accumulate all season. And the sap-to-finished-syrup ratio is about 40-to-1, so we may end up with about a thimble-full of syrup, but it will be fun anyway.

Lori and Carter made brownies last Wednesday, while Sean was at school. Carter got to lick the spoons while the brownies were baking. Once finished, those brownies lasted less than 48 hours in this house. That might even be a new record.