A Chipotle is Just a Smoke-Dried Jalapeño

A chipotle (chi-POAT-lay) is a smoke-dried chile pepper. Many chiles can be turned into chipotles, with jalapeño the most recognizable here in the U.S. If you're growing, or have access to, jalapeño peppers, it's easy to make a chile smoker and with that, your own chipotles to add flavor to soups or beans, grind into powder, make enchilada sauce, or can en adobo. Start with ripe jalapeno peppers, ideally those that have turned completely red. If all you have access to are green jalapeños, no problem.

Peppers, like tomatoes, will continue to ripen after they're picked if left unrefrigerated. In the fall, when frost threatens, I pick then pile my peppers in a bowl and let them set out on the counter for a couple of weeks. They can set for quite a while, but try to process jalapeños before the stem starts to separate from the body of the chile. Some peppers with thinner walls will continue to ripen and then dry, but jalapeños are too fleshy - they tend to rot before they'll dry. Smoking them is one way to preserve them - canning them as nacho slices, freezing them whole, sliced, or stuffed with a cream cheese mixture to turn into poppers, or whipping up a batch of jalapeno hot sauce, or jelly are other options.

But I digress. We're supposed to be making a smoker to turn jalapeños into chipotles. Commercial smokers, that have been previously used for meat can give a greasy, and later rancid, taste to the chiles, so it's best to put together something just for the chipotles. The main thing to remember is that you don't want to cook the jalapeños, but rather let the smoke waft away the moisture in the chiles as it also infuses them with flavor.

The best way to do that is to make a separate firebox, and then connect it to your smoking box with a piece of pipe. Of course, the firebox portion has to be able to withstand fire, so I use some cinder blocks and a piece of steel pipe. I used some crumpled foil to fill in the areas between round pipe and square blocks, but it doesn't have to be perfectly airtight. The smoker section, on the other hand, only has to hold the chiles suspended in the smoke while it acts as an offset chimney, so a cardboard box works fine. In the past, I've found taller boxes (that held a windshield, or a washer) but this time I'd just picked up a couple of smaller ones. They were two different diameters though, and instead of trying to fit them together, I found a piece of roof vent flashing, set that on the bigger box, then the smaller box, and taped the flaps of the bottom box to the upper box.

Next, you need some way to suspend the peppers in the rising smoke. A pan poked full of holes could work, but isn't ideal - the peppers would tend to steam in their juices more than dry. In the past, I've strung the peppers on lengths of string, and hung that draped across dowels poked through the box. That's not too bad, depending on how you want to use your chipotles. If you're just dropping them whole into a pot of soup, it's ok, but if you're planning on grinding some into powder or canning some in adobo sauce the string can be difficult to deal with. A wire basket or a rack that won't allow the chiles to drop through is best. I bent a piece of hardware cloth into a basket, suspending it on the (cut-down) cardboard divider inside the box plus a couple pieces of coat hangers stuck through the box.

The best woods to use for smoking the chiles are from fruits or nut trees. If that's not possible, hardwoods are the next best. You just don't want to use pine, mesquite, or other resinous woods. I always save the prunings from my fruit trees, so I'm always ready when getting ready to start smoking. The night before, I soaked half the wood pieces so they'll burn slower and cooler.

It's always best to be prepared when playing with fire, so I pulled the hose over, on at the faucet and closed off with a twist valve. Aries also brought the fire extinguisher out of the garage, just in case. I started a fire in my firebox, and while I waited for it to get going, I pulled the stems off the jalapenos and loaded up the basket. I used all my red ones, those partially changed, and then some of the green ones with white corking (desirable in chipotles - don't ask me why). If I've grown paprika or habanero peppers, I'll usually smoke-dry some of them too, to grind into powders.

Once I had a nice little bed of hot coals in the firebox, I added a couple handfuls of soaked wood and then put a piece of metal over the top, held down with a couple smaller bricks. I sat out to watch for a while, just to make sure everything was holding together ok. Every hour or two, I'd add more wood, and turned the chiles a couple of times.

Low and slow is the best way to make chipotles - both flavorful and ones that will last in storage. It's better to stretch it out over a couple of days than to try and hurry up the process with more heat. I smoked my chiles all day, but rain was on the way. I just pulled the cardboard boxes away from the pipe and set them in the garage for the next day and a half. The photo above is after another afternoon of smoking, and I have them going again this afternoon. If you're in a hurry, the jalapenos will dry faster if cut in half and seeds removed. You can also dry them in a dehydrator or your oven until wrinkled but not stiff, and then smoke them (doing it in reverse will also work, but your house will smell like smoke for days). Finished chipotles are hard, lightweight, and dark brown in color. Ones that are still leathery won't store as long. Once the chipotles are dried, store them in jars with a rubbery seal or in an airtight plastic bag.

Umm - the aroma just from opening up my chipotle jar to take this photo made my mouth start to water. To use, drop one into a pot of beans or soup, and remove after cooking. If you want to grind them into powder, they might need to be dried further, until they can be broken in half. I use some of mine to make a big batch of enchilada sauce (pressure-canned) every couple of years. Or new last year, a batch of chipotles en adobo - re-hydrated chipotles pickled in a tomato-based sauce (double-yum! - recipe to be posted soon).

Hostess Gift? Ok, Check the Pantry

Heavy snow last Friday caused a friend to cancel a planned holiday get-together. Then, a break in the weather allowed her a last-minute rescheduling for last night. I worked yesterday, plus am trying to get a bit of daily exercise out walking with the dog each day (the little stars on my calendar signify at least 30 minutes activity - I'm really trying to make it a daily habit). This left me but a little time to put together a hostess gift, but I was sure I could figure out something.

I like giving people something I've made when I can manage it. Let's see - what do I have in the pantry? I label my canned goods with the date, and while jelly from a couple of years ago is just fine for us, I think gifts should be the freshest and best. This year wasn't the best harvest for a wide variety of goodies. Hmmm - besides, a jar of tomato sauce or a couple of sour pickles just isn't going to cut it. I really think a holiday hostess gift should be a bit more festive than utilitarian, and still be something she'd like, too. Something she could either add to her party table, or set aside for personal use later. Aha! how about a dried fruit platter?

I have some great dried fruits - harvested at the peak of ripeness from my own trees. Growing fruit in the high desert is feast or famine - late Spring frosts often mean no harvest at all. So in the years when we do manage to get fruit to set, it often ends up being a bumper crop. And our hot, dry summers are perfect for drying fruit; while quite heating up the kitchen with a big pot of boiling canning water, not so attractive. Another plus: when properly stored, dried fruites hold onto that great taste for years.

The big tins in my pantry hold bags of wonderful dried fruit. Pulling them out, I quickly put together a tasty mixture of sizes, textures, and colors - pie cherries, plums, apricots, raisins, peaches, and pumpkin pie leather - little labels for each (the apples and pears, other leathers, are great too - but I ran out of room on the plate). When I gave it to her at the door, she graciously added it to her table. Bits of dried fruit look deceptively small - each bite is packed with flavor and fiber; too rich to eat by the handfuls. There was enough for everyone's snacking throughout the party, plus plenty left for her to enjoy later too.

The January Cellar & Pantry

Even though the past summer wasn't the best in terms of garden output, we're still eating pretty good around here. On my latest trip down into the cellar I brought up one of the last two fresh zucchinis. By purposely letting the last few zukes of the summer grow to club-size, they'll store, unrefrigerated, for a few more months. The skin has turned almost completely golden, but the flesh is still firm.

The black-eyed peas from New Year's Day are gone. I've been cooking up crockpot full of a different dried legume regularly - adding no seasoning at the time so I can then incorporate them into different recipes during the week. This week's legume is garbanzo beans. Using some of them, along with part of the zucchini, home-canned tomato sauce, storage onions, garlic, and carrots, frozen bell peppers, spinach, and pesto, I made up a minestrone-inspired stew (I put quinoa in it instead of pasta - thickening it into stew consistency, plus adding protein). Chopped fresh tomatoes (can't compare to summer tomatoes, but the last of my paste tomatoes, harvested green, eventually do turn red in storage) made a nice garnish on top at serving time.

This afternoon, we had a potluck/brainstorming session at work. Everyone brought munchies and snacks, so I put together a dried fruit platter from my pantry. Clockwise from the top, there are sliced nectarines, plum halves, raisins, pumpkin pie leather (actually, from a big pink banana squash - even better), and pie cherries, all home-grown.

We Be Smokin'

Earlier this year when posting here about my pepper pantry, I mentioned that I would be growing extra jalapenos this summer to replenish my chipotle (che-POAT-lee) supply. I promised I would post instructions for putting together a make-shift smoker, and turning jalapeno peppers into chipotles.

Start with ripe jalapeno peppers, ideally those that have turned completely red. This year, we had a late spring, reasonably cool summer, and snow the first week of October. Only a couple of my jalapeno peppers had just started to turn red when I had to pick everything (the golden ones on the left are habaneros - they too were picked green, but are faster to change color).

No problem. Peppers, like tomatoes, will continue to ripen after they're picked if left unrefrigerated. I let the peppers set out on the counter for a couple of weeks. They can set for quite a while, but try to process jalapenos before the stem starts to separate from the body of the chile. Some peppers with thinner walls will continue to ripen and then dry, but jalapenos are too fleshy - they tend to rot before they'll dry. Smoking them is one way to preserve your jalapenos - canning them as nacho slices, or freezing them whole, sliced, or stuffed with a cream cheese mixture to turn into poppers, or whipping up a batch of jalapeno hot sauce are other options (that link also has a recipe for my habanero-orange hot sauce - my absolute favorite, and why there are also habanero peppers ripening on my counter).

But I digress. We're supposed to be making a smoker to turn jalapenos into chipotles. Commercial smokers, that have been previously used for meat, can give a greasy, and later rancid, taste to the chiles, so it's best to use something just for the chipotles. Unless you're planning on going into the chipotle business, a temporary smoker made from easily acquired items is the way to go. The main thing to remember is that you don't want to cook the jalapenos, but rather let the smoke waft away the moisture in the chiles as it also infuses them with flavor. The best way to do that is to make a separate firebox, and then connect it to your smoking box with a piece of pipe. Of course, the firebox portion has to be able to withstand fire, so I've used some cinder blocks and a piece of steel pipe. I used some crumpled foil to fill in the areas between round pipe and square blocks, but it doesn't have to be perfectly airtight. The smoker section, on the other hand, only has to hold the chiles suspended in the smoke while it acts as an offset chimney, so a cardboard box works fine. In the past, I've found taller boxes (that held a windshield, or a washer) but this year I just picked up a couple of smaller ones. They were two different diameters though, and instead of trying to fit them together, I found a piece of roof vent flashing, set that on the bigger box, then the smaller box, and taped the flaps of the bottom box to the upper box, just in case the wind came up (and notice that there are bricks holding down the flaps of the bottom box for the same reason). For a more primitive option, depending on your soil type, you could dig a firepit and smoke trench, covering both with metal or even rocks, and then add your cardboard smoke box.

Next, you need some way to suspend the peppers in the rising smoke. A pan poked full of holes could work, but isn't ideal - the peppers would tend to steam in their juices more than dry. In the past, I've strung the peppers on lengths of string, and hung that draped across dowels poked through the box. That's not too bad, depending on how you want to use your chipotles. If you're just dropping them whole into a pot of soup, it's ok, but if you're planning on grinding some into powder or making some in adobo sauce the string can be difficult to deal with. A wire basket or a rack that won't allow the chiles to drop through is best. I bent a piece of hardware cloth into a tray, supporting it with the (cut-down) cardboard divider inside the box plus a couple pieces of coat hangers stuck through either end of the box.

The best woods to use for smoking the chiles are from fruits or nut trees. If that's not possible, hardwoods are the next best. You just don't want to use pine, mesquite, or other resinous woods. I lost a nectarine tree to borers this year, and always save the prunings from my fruit trees, so I had a nice supply of smoking wood. The night before, I soaked half the wood pieces so they'd burn slower and cooler. Be aware that once you start up with the smoke, you will be perfuming your entire neighborhood. But smoking chiles smell like food, not smoldering leaves, so the neighbors just might drop by with their mouths watering to see what's going on.

It's always best to be prepared when playing with fire, so I pulled the hose over, on at the faucet and closed off with a twist valve. Aries also brought the fire extinguisher out of the garage, just in case. I started a small fire in my firebox, and while I waited for it to get going, I pulled the stems off the jalapenos and loaded up the basket. I used all my red ones, those partially changed, and then some of the green ones with white corking (very desirable in chipotles - don't ask me why).

Once I had a nice little bed of hot coals in the firebox, I added a couple handfuls of soaked wood and then put a piece of metal over the top, held down with a couple smaller bricks. I sat out to watch for a while, just to make sure everything was holding together ok. Every hour or two, I'd add more wood, and turned the chiles a couple of times.

Low and slow is the way to go with chipotles - both for the best flavor and to ensure ones that will last in storage. It's better to stretch it out over a couple of days than to try and hurry up the process with more heat. Let the fire burn out overnight, and start it up again the next day. I smoked my chiles all day, but rain was forecast for tomorrow. I just pulled the cardboard boxes away from the pipe and set them in the garage for the next day and a half. The photo above is after another afternoon of smoking, and I have them going again this afternoon. If you're in a hurry, the jalapenos will dry faster if cut in half and seeds removed. You can also dry them in a dehydrator or your oven until wrinkled but not stiff, and then smoke them (doing it in reverse will also work, but your house will smell like smoke for days). Finished chipotles are hard, lightweight, and dark brown in color. Ones that are still leathery won't store as long. Once the chipotles are dried, store them in jars with a rubbery seal or in an airtight plastic bag.

To use, drop one into a pot of beans or soup, and remove after cooking (or dice the rehydrated chile and stir bits into the pot to taste). They add a rich, smokey, bit of heat. If you want to grind them into powder, they might need to be dried further, until they can be broken in half. I use lots of mine to make a big batch of enchilada sauce (pressure-canned) every couple of years. Or make up a batch of chipotles in adobo sauce, rehydrated chipotles pickled in a tomato-based sauce.

Peachy-keen, Jellybean

I love tree-ripened peaches. My dad planted a couple of peach trees when I was a kid, and I was thereafter spoiled for supermarket peaches. I'll see them in the store and they look pretty, but there's no aroma. You can take them home and they'll soften, but they never will taste like peaches. I want my peaches still warm from the sun, eaten right there next to the tree, bending over to keep the juice from dripping down my shirt.

I have a couple of peach trees, but because of our typical tricky Spring weather, here they're an every-third or -fourth year type of crop. My mature nectarine tree set a crop this year, but then succumbed to borers (I'm just heartsick - they're in my pie cherry tree too). Aries cut it down today, but left a sprout that came up from the roots so I'll have to see what comes from that before digging it out completely. I have a pitiful twisted little July Elberta peach tree trying to hang in there. I got about 1/2 bushel of peaches from it three weeks ago. I managed to get a few trays of slices into the dehydrator, and have been stuffing myself on fresh peaches daily since then.

And then, there's what I call the Seedling peach tree. I don't know what kind it is. It just sprouted one summer under the edge of our woodpile. I figure a squirrel buried a seed it stole from somewhere - I don't think it's an Elberta, because its fruit ripens almost a month later. I transplanted the little seedling to the edge of the garden, and then out in the orchard. It's since grown into a nice tree. It lost a couple of branches to borers this year, but is still doing pretty good. I've been testing and tasting, patiently waiting for those peaches to get ripe and hoping the birds will leave me some (I hung a bunch of junk CD's in the branches - hoping the sun glinting as they turn in the wind will frighten them off).

Finally, it was peach-picking day today. The bird-pecked ones I cut into chunks and put into the dehydrator (no room in my freezer). I gave my neighbor a bagful, and made a batch of jam this afternoon. I've set aside 15 pounds for a batch of salsa, and have enough to gorge myself on for a couple more weeks. Eating seasonally from my own labors means I've got to get my fresh peach fix when I can. Oh, but they're soooooo good while they last!

Making Fruit Leathers

After reading my post about making Pumpkin Pie Leather, Annette asked if I had any more leather recipes. I usually just blend raw fruit, cored or pitted, into a puree. Even mushy, over-ripe fruit makes good leather, as long as any bruised parts are removed. I peel apples and pears, but leave peels on the stone fruits. You can also make leather out of cooked fruit puree, such as applesauce, adding other fruit purees to change the flavor.

For leathers, 1½ cups puree makes one 9" x 13" leather. You want a texture thin enough to pour out and spread out evenly ⅛ - ¼ inch thick. Too thin, and it tends to stick to the drying surface. Too thick and it might spoil before drying. Uneven spreading, such as thin corners and thick in the middle leads to brittle corners and a center that might be too moist to store. Add a bit of juice or water to thin too-thick purees; you might have to cook a too-thin one down a bit, or add a bit of a thicker type of fruit.

I like the sweet-tart flavor of plain fruit leathers, but a couple teaspoons of lemon juice to 1½ cups puree can brighten up both color and flavor, or an added bit of honey will make it sweeter. Use a light hand (say, ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon:1½ cup puree) if adding any spices, as the drying process concentrates and heightens flavors. If using a rimmed cookie sheet, coating the surface with a very thin film of oil or non-stick spray can make it easier to remove the finished leather. If using plastic wrap, tape the corners down so they don't blow onto the drying puree (leathers stick to waxed paper and foil, so don't use them. Edit added later: I now have a couple of silicone non-stick mats cut to fit my dehydrator screens - even better as they're reusable). Leathers dried until sticky to the touch, but that can be peeled off the surface, are ready to eat, but will only store for a few months. Leathers flipped over and dried until no longer sticky store indefinitely in a cool, dark place, when packaged to exclude moisture and pests.

I use a combination of drying and refrigerated oil-storage to make tomato paste, and have played around with dehydrating salsa to reconstitute when camping. For those looking for something a bit more exotic, here are a few leather recipes from "Food Drying at Home the Natural Way" by Bee Beyer. Written in 1976, it has almost 200 pages of tips and recipes for making and using all kinds of dehydrated foods. The book is no longer in print, but I see Amazon.com has used copies listed for shipping costs plus a penny, so you might want to check into adding it to your home library. For the following recipes, puree ingredients together in a blender in order given, spread out and dry. Makes leathers approximately 9" x 13".

Banana-Peanut Butter Leather (1 leather)
2 large bananas
¼ cup crunchy peanut butter
(the fat in the peanut butter means this leather will only store for a few weeks in a cupboard; six months to a year if frozen)

Cranberry Orange Leather (1 leather)
¾ cup fresh cranberries
1 orange, peeled and white fibers removed
1 very ripe banana
honey, to taste (optional)

Strawberry Rhubarb Leather (2 leathers)
1¼ cups fresh strawberry puree
1¼ cups fresh raw rhubarb puree
honey to taste

Watermelon-Fruit Leather (2 leathers)
1 cup diced seeded watermelon
1 cup diced banana
1 cup diced fresh pineapple (or canned drained unsweetened pineapple)
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Tropical Combo (2 leathers)
1 cup diced strawberries
1 cup diced banana
1 cup diced pineapple
2 tablespoons lemon juice
honey to taste
Optional: sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg, or shredded unsweetened coconut over puree on trays before drying

Hot Tomato Leather (1 leather)
1¼ cups tomato puree
up to 1 teaspoon chopped fresh hot pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh onion
Sprinkle 1 tablespoon chopped bell pepper over puree on tray before drying.
If dried to pliable, bendable stage, this can be eaten as a leather; if dried to brittle, breakable stage it can be powered and used as a flavoring.

I like eating leathers "as-is", for snacking around the house or to carry with me hiking. If made on plastic wrap, they can be stored rolled up, wrap and all. If then cut into 1" rounds, kids will eat them up just like the fruit roll-ups from the store, but you control the amount of sugar (adding ripe bananas to any leather is an easy way to increase sweetness without sugar). You can dissolve pieces of leather in water and use over ice cream or stir into yoghurt. These recipes are just a start. Get creative and invent your own!

Pumpkin Pie Leather

This time of year, my home-grown fresh-food options are things that store well. Apples, potatoes, beets, winter radishes, and carrots are in the cellar. Garlic, onions, and shallots hang in the pantry. Leeks and kale are still out in the garden. Seeds store well. Last year I let a few Daikon radishes and cole plants go to seed - sprouted, they add a tasty zing to winter meals. But we have one more fresh foods storage spot here at Firesign Farm.

Winter squash, cured in the fall out in the dark garage, spend the winter in crates in the corner of our bedroom. The cellar is too cold for squash, the pantry too warm. But with our only heat the wood stove in the living room, this far corner of the bedroom is perfect. I grow a few different types of winter squash. The difference in sizes and tastes allows for variety in our winter meals. The smaller butternuts are nice microwaved and mashed like sweet potatoes. The acorn types are good baked and stuffed. But then there are the bigger squash. They store the best, lasting until May or June, so there's no hurry to use them. They're so big that once I cook one, we're eating it for days. I try to cook one big squash every week or two. The bumpy Hopi are new - I'm still playing with them. I usually use the pink banana squash for any recipe calling for pumpkin, but last summer a friend gave me a couple of pumpkin plants so this year I have pumpkins to play with too.

To cook a big squash, I split it in half and remove the seeds - saving some to plant, the rest to soak in salt water and then roast. Some have peels so hard I have to beat an old knife through with a hammer. I put the pieces, cavity-side down, in a roasting pan with an inch of water added and bake at 375º for an hour or until the skin can be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Once cool enough to handle, I scrape out the flesh and mash to use in a number of different recipes. The pumpkins aren't cooking pumpkins - they're the jack-o-lantern type - so once cooked, are more watery than the Hopi or banana squash. So I glop the mashed pumpkin into a colander set into a bowl and put that in the refrigerator to drain. Harry Potter and the Hogwarts kids are right - pumpkin juice really is quite tasty! It also adds a nice layer of flavor to beef stew.

Pie, custard, muffins, pasta, soup - there are lots of winter dishes I cook with mashed squash, and if I have to I can always freeze it too. But since I just wrote about dehydrating fruits and vegetables for my turn posting at the Simple Green Frugal Co-op I thought I'd share one of my favorite treats to make now, easy to store for later (pumpkin pie leather in the big jar, peach unrolled on the left, plum on the right).

Pumpkin Pie Leather (makes 4 9"x13" leathers)

2 eggs
4 cups cooked, mashed squash or pumpkin (or 1 one-pound can)
⅓ cup honey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 can evaporated milk (or 1 c dry milk + 1½ c water)

Put into blender in order given, blend well. Spray rimmed cookie sheets with a thin film of non-stick spray, or line dehydrator trays with plastic wrap or parchment paper (edit added later: or even better, a silicone non-stick mat cut to fit -nice because it's reusuable) held down with a bit of tape on the corners. Spread mixture uniformly ⅛ to ¼ inch thick on prepared trays. Dry 8-10 hours at 115º, or until leather will pull away from the tray. Roll up and store in a cool, dark, dry place. Will keep indefinitely.

My Pepper Pantry

In my garden every year, one 50' soaker hose bed is the "Fruiting Bed". This includes my tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and chiles - all started from seed inside in early Spring and set out as plants in June. I always try to have 5-6 bell pepper plants, 5-6 big roasting-type chile plants, a jalapeño or two to use fresh, and then 2-3 plants of a different hot pepper each year. This year, I had a couple of Cayenne pepper plants, and one Habanero. Last year, I grew Ancho chiles; year before that, Paprika.

The fully ripe hot peppers, I hang up to dry. A length of peppers sewn together for drying is called a ristra, the Spanish word for string. Using a big needle threaded with a doubled length of heavy-duty carpet thread, I make a big knot in the end then thread through the thickest part of the stem just above each fruit, pushing each one down to the end and turning them different directions. I make a hanging loop in the top end, wrap a little label with type of pepper and the year around the string, and hang them up. The wall between my kitchen and living room has a big cutout area. Aries took a big dowel, slid a bunch of "S" hooks on it, and attached it to the top of the cutout for me to hang my ristras (that's corn up there too). They're both decorative and tasty.

A lot of the dried chiles I grind into powders to use in cooking. I have a coffee grinder that I use only for grinding spices (when I'm finished grinding something, I clean it by grinding some rice into powder, then dumping it out - that absorbs any flavors and oils, and keeps my chili from tasting like curry). When I need some chile powder, I'll take down a ristra, rinse the chiles to remove any dust, and hang it outside to make sure they're completely dry again before grinding. I'll break the chiles apart (wearing gloves), remove stems, the pithy inside ribs and the seeds (saving some for when I want to grow that variety again), and grind just the red skin. I re-use yeast jars to store the different powders - they have a rubber rim inside the lid that seals tight, and the dark glass keeps the flavor and color from fading.

Next year, it will be time to plant extra Jalapeño pepper plants. These short thick peppers are too fleshy to hang and dry - they tend to rot instead. However, they can be preserved by drying in a smoker - then they're called Chipotle peppers. Chipotles, either ground or a whole one removed before serving, add a wonderful smoky heat to winter's bean crockpots or soups. I have half a jar of powder, a few whole ones, and just used the rest making a batch of enchilada sauce (I'll put that canning recipe in a separate post).

Putting By the Grape Harvest

No freeze yet - it only went down to 35. The harvest continues, just not quite so frantically. I have a red seedless Reliance grapevine, about 18 years old now. It's the one fruit I can almost always count on, blooming late enough to miss most Spring frosts. It's planted on the east side of the dog run/chicken brood pen (I also have a green Himrod, that never produces much at all but shades the west side of the dog run, and a very young Golden Muscat just getting started on the east side of the deck). The Reliance is shaped into a four-arm Kniffen, with two branches running south and two north. By pruning it back each year to just those four arms, the new growth gets plenty of sunlight each year, and it's easy to net the whole thing from the birds. I've got one long piece of netting that will stretch all the way up and over, clothes-pinned underneath to the chain link fence, and more than long enough to go around the corners. I use an old broom to lift the netting on and off, and wind it around an old Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tube for storage year-to-year.

I now get probably 40-50 pounds of grapes each year. Some I freeze to use like blueberries in muffins, smoothies, and cereal (I love frozen grapes, with their little casing of ice milk, in my cereal bowl). Some we eat fresh out-of-hand. Fresh grapes will keep into December, laid out in unwashed bunches one layer deep on newspaper-lined trays in the cellar. Some I give to the neighbor kids. And the rest I dehydrate into raisins.

I used to dry my raisins out in the sun on the deck, moving the laden screens inside every night. But when an elderly neighbor across the street decided to get rid of everything and move to India, she gave me her old dehydrator (it's harvest-gold color - at least 30 years old), plus the paperback book that went with it; Food Drying at Home by Bee Beyer. It's a really nice dehydrator, the size of a big microwave, with eight rectangular screens, a fan (a bit noisy), and an adjustable temperature control. I still use the sun for dehydrating summer produce, but it's so much easier to do the grapes in October inside. So today, I watched a couple of movies on TV and de-stemmed enough grapes for a full load.

A Peck o' Peppers

Our first freeze is predicted for Sunday night, and we've had intermittent rain sprinkles the past couple of days (the guineas must have felt something in the wind - they didn't fly out of the chicken pen today, instead staying in, close to cover, and bossing the chickens all day). If we get a dry cold snap in September, I'll usually cover the fruiting bed crops - buying myself a couple more weeks time. I've got a bunch of old draperies that work well - heavy enough to stay put if it's windy and big enough to wrap around and drape over support cages and all. But by October, I'm ready to bring it all in, especially if it's going to be wet (I really don't like wrestling with half-frozen sodden draperies the next morning).

So the past few days I've started getting the tender crops in. This is what my kitchen counter looked like this morning - a variety of peppers to process. I have mostly open-pollinated (not hybrid) crops, so I put the biggest, ripest, prettiest-colored couple of each type aside to save the seeds. By this afternoon, I had most of the bell peppers cut into 3/4" chunks, the jalapenos in slices, and both into the freezer (no need to blanch peppers). I did save quite a few bells for a couple more batches of gazpacho, since I've got enough Early Girl tomatoes and cucumbers still out there. The chiles, red bells, and banana peppers I roasted, now cooling in bags in the refrigerator, ready to peel. The red cayennes I strung into a ristra, using a big needle threaded with a doubled length of carpet thread, and hung up to dry. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with the green cayennes and habaneros just yet. I have a recipe for jalapeno green sauce I think I'm going to adapt, and maybe do another adaptation with oranges and the habaneros. More on that later.

Pie Cherries

Due to intermittent Spring freezes, I'm not getting much of a tree-fruit crop this year (again). The black (sweet) cherry tree had only a few cherries, and the birds got most of those. No plums, no peaches, no nectarines, no pears - and only a few apples.

I did get some Montmorency pie cherries. Sometimes, that little tree will bear so heavy that I can just sit in a lawn chair underneath and pick the cherries into a bowl in my lap. Picking pie cherries is a two-handed job - pulling the branch to you with one hand and then pinching the cherries off their stems with the other. This year, there were only a few cherries here and there, so I had to move about to be able to get to them. So here's what I came up with, and it worked great! I put a big plastic bowl into the "lap" of my granny apron, and then held it in place by clothes-pinning the skirt to the bib. I was able to duck under and around the branches and found enough cherries to fill the bowl.

Since I didn't have very many cherries to play with this year, I'm only doing my most favorite pie cherry storage option. I'm drying all of them. Dried pie cherries are wonderful - tart and sweet and chewy, just like the sweetened dried cranberries (sometimes marketed as "craisins") but with no sugar, nothing, added. Plus, no heating up the kitchen canning them, no freezer dependent on continuous electric power, and only a fraction of the storage space needed to keep them indefinitely. My various dried fruits are kept in gallon bags in tins in my pantry - easy to get to for a snack, to use in cooking (dried cherries in my Christmas fudge - yum!), or a handful in a baggie when I'm off on a hike.

After washing the bowlful and picking through to remove any bird-pecked ones, I sat down to pit them in front of a TV movie. I use a plastic soda straw, bent into a "Z" shape so that it fits into my hand (and also so the cherry goo can't push all the way out the other end). I don't even need to watch what I'm doing - I can just pick up a cherry, feel where the stem was, and then push the pit out the other end with the straw. I have a dehydrator, but this time of year sun-drying works just fine. I put the fruit on the screened trays from the dehydrator, and then to keep bugs and birds away, put the trays between two old window screens on the table out on the deck. I'm experimenting with a few strawberries too, but think I'd rather freeze them (slices on a cookie sheet until frozen, then put into a freezer bag so I can easily take out only as much as I want), or make them into jam.

Too humid where you live, or no dehydrator? You might try dehydrating fruit on cookie sheets in the back window of your car, parked in the sun with the windows cracked just a bit to let out the moisture.