It snowed today, so maybe now I can really call it. Yesterday, just in time, I got the garlic in their bed and topped with 6 inches of straw.
On Thursday, I vowed to be really done preserving. Really. I cut off the remaining Brussels sprouts and the remaining peppers, which made a large pile on my kitchen counter. Two kinds of paprika– the Feherozen finally turned sort of almost red– poblano, and Jimmy Nardello. The Brussels sprouts half-filled an ice cream bucket.
I trimmed and blanched and froze two bags of sprouts, keeping aside the largest ones for a meal this week. For the first time this season, I roasted the peppers, which meant blackening their skins under the broiler, steaming and peeling them, then putting them in a jar with oil seasoned with garlic and dried ground paprika from last week.
Many of the small paprika peppers were too thin-skinned for this maneuver, so I only ended up with one pint when all was said and done. The good news is that they will last a year in the fridge. And I had a little vial of the garlic paprika oil I will use in an upcoming African chicken recipe.
That done, it was time to work through the remaining surplus.
With the remaining cherry tomatoes, the Jimmy Nardello peppers and the leeks, I started making pizzas. I bought the crusts and after the first time making the cheese, I got impatient and just used pre-shredded cheese! I also put some chunks of smoked salmon on the pizzas, and sauteed mushrooms when I had them. For the sauce I put cherry tomatoes, garlic and a couple red peppers in the blender and then reduced the sauce in a pan on the stove. I have to say, the cherry tomatoes made a super sweet and pretty thick sauce. It was a fantastic thing to do with end-of-season peppers and tomatoes. Once they were out of the oven, I topped the pizzas with greens, mizuna mostly, which is growing in the cold frame. I dressed the mizuna, first with Korean barbecue sauce and then with a simple vinegar/oil, and both times it wilted slightly, was delicious and added more veggie power to the pizza.
I put everything away. Everything.
Then, yesterday, when I went to buy straw for planting the garlic, the store had 20# bags of local apples for $15! Good looking apples. I couldn’t resist. So today, after I swore I was done, I cranked out eight pints of apple sauce, an apple crisp, and made chicken with apples and sage for dinner…
Remind me not to replace those two dead apple trees, ok?