Green Chili Cubes

So, my friend Kathy had a fantastic idea for freezing green chili's. Roast your chili's. I used an outdoor grill. Char the chili's on all sides, then place in a plastic bag for 15 minutes. Using gloves, peel the skins off, and scrape out the seeds. Then, the wonderful idea she gave me is to dice the green chili's, and put them in ice cube trays. Freeze them for several hours, then place in an airtight bag for the deep freezer. Freezing them this way means you can just pull out a little at a time for recipes or toppings. I love this idea so much! I plan to get more green chili's and do them this way.

This is about 1 pound fresh chili roasted then chopped and frozen.

Okra!

It may be 105 or more for the past month, but man do my okra plants love it! In case you're wondering, this is 1 weeks worth of okra. I blanched it, breaded it, and froze it on cookie sheets before transferring to this 2 GALLON sized bag. :)

I used Paula Dean's recipe for the breaded okra using buttermilk. Yummy and so crispy!
Click Here for Paula's recipe 
And this is my favorite site for gardening, canning and freezing.

 I think my peppers would do well if I had a shade over them. Unfortunately they all sunburned. :(

Cucumbers pulled, and the okra "trees"! Ready for some cooler weather and a fall garden now.

Garden in August

So....what happens to cucumber plants when you do this...

Well, sadly, you get this. Goodbye my loves! The dozen or more jars of pickles you gave this summer will be loved all year long! 

Hatch Green Chili Season

This first batch I got were from my local Kroger. The price was unbeatable for roasted and peeled green chili's. So delicious. I only bought 10lbs.
More pics coming of the green chili's I'm roasting at home and the nifty idea I'm going to try! Stay tuned!!

 I really don't know what they were thinking with such a small, dinky little roaster. They were roasting both green chili's and corn this day.

Here's my 10 lbs! I put them on trays and freeze like this for a few hours, then transfer into airtight freezer bags for the deep storage.

My next post on green chili's are one's I'm roasting at home. Keep watching!

Cherries!

I saw these cherries on sale at the local Farmer's Market, and had my husband buy 14lbs. Crazy, I know, lol. But they looked so good! We decided to eat a few, and can the rest for use this winter. I'm thinking cherry cobbler's and such. So much fun. Only 1 problem...I had no cherry pitter! OMG, what a nightmare. I did about half of them by hand, which made 9 pint jars. It was messy, and tiring, and my forearms and hands ached all night long....my fingers still look like I slaughtered an animal...nice.
For the rest of the cherries, I went to my local outlet mall that has a kitchen store and bought a cherry pitter that does 4 at a time. What a lifesaver! Can't wait to share recipes with these this winter.
This is the 2nd batch in a 2 gallon Ziploc bag.

Jars cleaned, hot and ready to use.

I used a mixture of half juice, half water to bathe the cherries. In the baggie is a lemon juice/water mixture to prevent browning after the pits were removed. Looks like blood. Seriously, for Halloween I know what to do to paint blood on costumes. 

Heat the liquid and cherries to boiling, takes about 5 minutes. Then, fill your hot jars, leaving 1/2in. headspace.

Boil in the canner 15 minutes.

And finished result. There were 3 more jars processing during this photo. So, about 8 lbs for 9 jars? That's a guess.

And the pitter I got today for $15. Already pitted a bowl-full for the kids in under a minute. :) Love it, love it, love it.