Pickled Peppers Two Ways

Even with hoophouse protection, pepper season is over. It was a great year for peppers in our garden, probably the best pepper season in the past five years, but all good things must come to an end. We had our first killing frost last night, and the temperatures dropped low enough to blitz the last of the peppers and tomatoes that had been barely hanging on in our unheated high tunnel.

So it was time to pick the rest of the fruits, lay the unripe ones out to finish ripening on the kitchen table in the sun, and preserve the rest. I usually fall back on my tried-and-true Sweet Pepper Hash recipe for preserving peppers, but I had already put away such a tremendous stockpile of Sweet Pepper Hash this year that it was time to diversify.

I tried out two new pickled peppers recipes, both of which look very promising. Both recipes are based on ones I found in "Stocking Up," a classic Rodale publication by Carol Hupping Stoner of which I have a treasured 1977 edition. (The entire book is amazingly available online here: Stocking Up: How to Preserve the Foods You Grow Naturally, Carol Hupping Stoner, Rodale Press, 1977.)

Here are the recipes:

Pepper Pickling Method #1:

Pickled Whole Peppers

• 4 quarts whole, ripe long peppers (these can be hot peppers like Hungarian or Banana, or sweet frying peppers - I used Jimmy Nardellos)
• 1 1/2 cups salt
• 4 quarts plus 2 cups water
• 2 Tbs prepared horseradish
• 4 cloves garlic
• 10 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup honey

Jimmy Nardellos after soaking in salt water for 18 hours, ready for packing into jars.

1. Cut two small slits along the long sides of each pepper
2. Dissolve salt in 4 quarts of water. Pour the salt water over the peppers and let stand for 12 to 18 hours in a cool place, covered.
3. Drain, rinse, and drain again thoroughly.
4. Combine 2 cups water and all remaining ingredients except the honey and bring to a simmer. Add honey.
5. Pack peppers into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Pour boiling pickling liquid over peppers, ensuring that the 1/4 inch headspace remains. Adjust sterilized lids and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Whole pickled peppers after processing

Pepper Pickling Method #2:

Pickled Sweet Pepper Strips

Wash, stem, and core peppers, and slice lengthwise into strips. Steam blanch the strips for 2 minutes, then plunge them into ice water to cool. Drain.

Pack the cooled strips into hot, sterilized pint or half-pint jars. Cover them with a boiling syrup made from 1/2 part honey to 2 parts apple cider vinegar. Leave 1/4 inch headspace. Cap with sterilized lids and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Red bell pepper strips ready for steam blanching, canning pot boiling on the woodstove

The finished product

The second recipe is much quicker, easier, and less involved than the first, so if you're looking for a speedy way to deal with a pepper onslaught, I recommend pickling them in strips. It turns out looking really lovely, too, especially when you mix red, orange, and yellow peppers. The pickled whole peppers didn't turn out looking as glamorous as I thought they would, I think because the horseradish makes for a little cloudiness. I'm sure the horseradish could be left out for a clear, pickling liquid that better shows off the pretty peppers.

We grew about 20 varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated sweet peppers this year, plus a few seasoning peppers and hot peppers mixed in. My long-time favorite sweet peppers are Jimmy Nardello, Corno di Toro, and Kevin's Early Orange, and they did not disappoint. But Chocolate Bell and Quadratto di Asti Rosso were standouts this year too, and we will grow them again.

Peppers are a great lesson in patience in the garden, starting out from seeds indoors as early as February and only really coming into their prime in September or even early October. The big, ripe bells always feel like treasures to me after all the months of waiting.

Having enough peppers to preserve for the winter feels like such abundance. Store-bought out of season peppers are such a luxury item, pricey both in terms of cost to the customer and cost to the planet. To have a few jars of peppers stashed away on the shelf feels like real wealth--what better riches than beautiful, bright, sweet peppers on a dark winter day!

Green Tomato Chutney

The question of what to do with green tomatoes at the end of the season used to be so simple when my garden was smaller. Fried green tomatoes are a delicious fall treat that I've come to associate with the first frost, when all of the tomatoes have to be harvested and brought inside whether they're ripe or not. Tart and sweet, crispy and juicy, fried green tomatoes are delightful sign that cold weather is setting in. But no matter how many mouths you have to feed, you can only consume so many fried green tomatoes.

This year, we grew more than twenty varieties of tomatoes, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 tomato plants in a 40-foot hoophouse and scattered around the ever-growing garden. We sold hundreds of pounds of tomatoes at farmers markets and I canned gallons and gallons of whole tomatoes and tomato sauce, made and froze scads of salsa, preserved boatloads of cherry tomatoes in oil, and generally sacked away enough homemade tomato products to last for a long time to come.

Tomato fatigue set in a while ago, and with the chaotic schedule of my job running a political campaign this fall, the last thing I wanted to think about was processing more tomatoes. But there they were: dozens and dozens of them. Piles of them. Bushels of them.

Fortunately, my friend Penryn sent me her recipe for Green Tomato Chutney, which turned out to be extraordinary. I canned a batch this afternoon, and saved some for eating right away, since it is pretty much irresistible: sweet, tart, saucy, and divinely delicious.

Penryn's Green Tomato Chutney

• 3 C currants or raisins (or cranberries or a mix)*
• 2 lemons that you have peeled, seeded, quartered and sliced thinly**
• 4 1/2 C finely chopped tart apples
• 4 1/2 C finely chopped green tomatoes
• 2 cloves garlic***
• 1/2 C honey
• 2 C finely chopped onions
• 1 C vinegar****
• 1 C filtered water
• 2 T mustard seed
• 2 tsp ground ginger (or slightly more fresh grated ginger)*****
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or 1 chopped fresh, ripe red cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients except honey and simmer until they are soft (probably 30 min or so). Add honey. Pack into hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath. Makes about 6 pints.

Notes:

*I used a scant 2 cups, which was certainly enough

**I substituted lemon juice

***I almost always at least double the garlic in recipes! I used 5 cloves put through a press

****I recommend organic apple cider vinegar

I used a food processor, which worked quite well for all the finely chopping.

The final product was super-delicious. Unfortunately, the chutney only made a small dent in my green tomato glut--I canned 38 half-pint jars, and would have to make another half-dozen batches to see the light at the end of the tomato processing tunnel. Tune in tomorrow for further adventures in green tomato usage.

PS: Apologies for the long absence from the Milkweed Diaries...I was caught up in the biennial whirlwind of running my friend Susan's campaign for North Carolina House. She won. And I am glad to be back in the kitchen, and writing again!

On Preserving Garlic...Featuring Pickled Garlic Two Ways

Garlic was the first food crop that we planted here on our land. We planted garlic before we had even a temporary place to live here, and it is without question the backbone of our kitchen and garden.

We harvested over 1,400 heads of garlic this year. We grew 13 heirloom varieties with a range of subtle taste differences and growth habits, planted in the fall for a mid-June to early July harvest.

We started out with seed garlic from Filaree Farm and have been saving garlic for seed from varieties that we like and that do well here, gradually selecting to create strains more and more well-suited to growing in this particular spot as we continue to save seed over the years.

Much of this year's garlic bounty will be saved for next year's seed; some will be sold to local restaurants; some will be sold, traded, or given to friends and family; and a large amount will be eaten right here in our home.

Christopher cured all of the garlic that we grew by hanging it to dry under a porch roof for 2-4 weeks (the time varies based on variety of garlic and weather conditions). He's recently been spending evenings processing cured garlic, cutting off tops and roots and sorting for storage, seed, and sale.

Curing garlic by drying it immediately after harvesting yields the dry heads of garlic that are the way most of us buy garlic at the grocery store. The majority of our garlic will be stored that way. Stored in a cool place with low humidity and good air flow, dried heads of garlic can keep for up to six months, depending on the variety of garlic. But we found this year that there comes a point in when the dry garlic from summer's harvest, even stored under the best conditions, has reached its maximum shelf life.

Plus, some of the garlic that we harvested is not pretty or perfect enough for selling, saving for seed, or storing whole. Particularly if the heads are not tight or the cloves are starting to separate or there is any sort of damage to the skin, garlic will be less likely to hold up in storage.

So we are finding ways to preserve garlic for use in our kitchen throughout the year. Pickling is an easy and tasty way to eat homegrown garlic year-round. And besides: pickled garlic just plain tastes good.

So here are two super-delicious ways to enjoy pickled garlic.

These two preparations have a different enough taste from one another that they are both worth trying, especially if you have an enormous amount of garlic to preserve, as we do.

Pickled garlic is great as a substitute for fresh garlic in prepared dishes (though it adds a totally different flavor) but my favorite way to eat it to pop a whole crunchy, sour clove in my mouth...mmm!

Pickled Garlic

The old fashioned brine-pickled way

(modified from Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation)

Ingredients:

• 2-4 cup garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup salt dissolved in 1 quart of water
• 1 Tbs. black peppercorns

Equipment:

• 1 gallon ceramic crock
• Small plate that just fits inside the crock

Instructions:

1. Peel the garlic and rinse.
2. Sprinkle the bottom of the crock with the peppercorns, and fill with garlic cloves.
3. Make the brine by combining 3/8 cup salt with 1 quart of water, and pour the brine into the crock over the cloves, making sure the garlic is submerged.
4. Place the plate on top of the top layer of garlic and weigh down with something heavy (I use a clean mason jar full of water). Make sure you don't have any floaters.
5. Cover with a cloth and allow to ferment for as long as you like. I recommend at least a month.

When the garlic reaches your desired taste, you can pack the cloves into jars, refrigerate and use as you like. Brine-pickled garlic should keep almost indefinitely.

Pickled Garlic

The newfangled vinegar/heat-processed way

(modified from a recipe found in the Rodale Food Center's book Preserving Summer's Bounty)

Ingredients

• 2 cup garlic cloves
• 3 cups apple cider vinegar
• 4 Tbs pickling spices (make your own blend or buy it pre-mixed)

Equipment:

• 4 pint jars with self-sealing lids
• Saucepan
• Canning pot big enough to fully submerge filled jars

Instructions:

1. Peel the garlic and blanch for 30 seconds. Drain.
2. In an enamel or stainless steal saucepan, bring the vinegar and pickling spices to a boil.
3. Pack the cloves into sterilized jars.
4. Pour the hot liquid over the cloves, leaving 1/2 inch of headroom.
5. Seal and process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Jars stored in a cool place out of direct light should keep for months or even years, and can be cracked open for garlicky goodness at any time. After opening a jar, you should refrigerate it-- that is, if there are any cloves left after you chow down on the crunchy sour taste explosion of pickled garlic!

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For more info on growing garlic:

Ron Engeland's Growing Great Garlic is an excellent resource for the finer points of not only growing but curing, handling, and storing garlic. This book has been our most useful garlic growing reference, and is well worth keeping around if you are going to grow any quantity of garlic.