Dehydrating Peppers

[Earthylady]

That's what I'm doing this evening. I have a bunch of jalapenos in the dehydrator and then I strung up my red chili peppers on a string to dry.

Been canning green beans and making/canning salsa lately too.

What all have you been working on?

[HomeyT]

We dehydrated some blueberries! Can't wait to start apples!

We freeze our other berries.

I did canned pickles for the first time! Dh loved them.

I'm new to dehydrating....what else can I do?? I wish I had peppers, yum!

Anyone dehydrate pears/peaches?
I also want to can juice purées not sure how to do it....and great websites for direction

[Macky]

Hey, maybe that's what I should do with my super-hot peppers! I grew them only because they were pretty and to give a few starts to my FIL and a friend. I'm afraid to handle them, though... they've got a Scoville rating of 30,000 - 50,000.

I've been attempting fermented pickles for the first time. First recipe didn't go well and I was really upset that they all had to be tossed. Tried a new one yesterday (from Alton Brown) as I had 12 lbs worth picked, so we'll see. A few were too big for the recipe, so they got quickly done up as fridge pickles.

I've got nearly all the broccoli crop blanched and frozen. The pole beans are doing really well now. I picked and trimmed up a few pounds this morning (Fortex, Emerite, Painted lady runners and Purple Peacock) that I still have to blanch and freeze; got interrupted with other work. I've had some Fortex beans growing to almost a foot long... and still tender!

So far I've only canned a bit of raspberry/rhubarb jam. The tomatoes are going to be late, so that won't be going on soon. I don't like the texture of beans when they're canned.

Oh, and I've been saskatoon berry picking and those are all frozen, too.

[Earthylady]

Today I'm going to work on some applesauce. This is the first year we've EVER had red tomatoes this early! In my 6 years of growing tomatoes, we've always gotten ripe ones in late August/early september. We started getting them in JULY this year! It's crazy!

We've sold 50 pounds of tomatoes on top of what we've used and given away about as many pounds. I do want to still can up some rotel (tomatoes and peppers), tomato soup, pasta sauce, and maybe try some homemade ketchup. Last year I made ketchup with a packet and it was ok, but I flubbed the directions up so it wasn't quite the way it was supposed to be. Maybe some pizza sauce.

I've blanched and frozen broccoli, canned some raspberry jelly, syrup and chocolate rasp. sauce, canned blackberry jelly, dilly beans, some sweet pickles and some green beans. I'm odd in that I don't like the texture of frozen beans or corn. I think it makes it kind of chewy and rubbery, so I prefer canned stuff. Maybe cause that's how my mom used to do it. She always canned stuff. I still remember the first time she served us frozen corn. I grossed out. LOL

Anyway. Our potatoes are starting to get done now too. I'm starting to think we may have planted too much. I'm praying our storage efforts turn out better this year than last.

[Macky]

Frozen corn IS gross if you do it by the typical method... blanching and freezing. My MIL gave me a recipe where you actually cook the corn (off the cob) with a bit of sugar and salt before you freeze it. The quality in the freezer is superb for about 8 months, ime; after that, it's still good, but the inevitable conversion of natural sugars to starch starts to be noticeable (to me, not to DH, though). I haven't looked into whether the recipe is safe to can because I didn't have a pressure canner until last year and our corn didn't do well last year.

Beans... well, you have to grow a variety that hold up to freezing. Not all do. How you cook them from frozen is what influences their texture the most. Dumping them into boiling water (like you would with fresh beans) is going to make a gross, mushy mess. We have a vacuum sealer and I've found the BEST way to cook them from frozen is to poke holes in the top of the package (we make meal-sized packages) and chuck them in the microwave on the 'frozen veggies' setting. When it's done, you just let them sit there for about 15 minutes; this lets the steam plump up the beans right to the middle. The texture is practically like cooked-from-fresh... the only thing it lacks is the 'squeakiness' of fresh-cooked snaps. That's been our experience anyway and it took a few seasons to figure out.

What dilly bean recipe do you use? I tried dilled asparagus once and it was awful, so I haven't tried anything else. I know there's one that's raved about on GardenWeb, but I'm gun shy now.

[Earthylady]

We are a non microwave cooking home.

I personally, do not like pickled stuff...but someone at hubby's work brought in some dilly beans and he loved them so got the recipe and had me make some for him. I can't vouch for their flavor as I didn't even try them. In the name of love I made them for him knowing I'd never eat them.

Here's the recipe:

Dilly Beans (canning recipe)

2 1/2 c. vinegar
2 1/2 c. water
1/4 c. salt
green beans (ends cut off)
1/4 tsp. hot red pepper or slices of habaneros (to taste)
dill (fresh or dried dill weed)
1 to 3 cloves garlic (to taste)

Boil the vinegar/water/salt mixture. Sanitize jars and fill tightly with dill, green beans, garlic, and hot pepper. Pour liquid over top, leaving 1/2 inch headroom in jar. Process in hot water canner 10 minutes. Makes about 2 quarts.

[Macky]

Yeah, you're not going to get good texture from a frozen green bean on the stove then.

That sounds like the dilly recipe I tried with the asparagus. We can agree on the grossness of that one at least.