Chili Peppers and Plums
2:20 p.m. - 2007-06-21


What is with all the fruit this year? The tree out front has so much fruit on the branches that they are bent to the ground. Last night he picked the golden plums, so this morning Abby and I made three or four batches of jam. There are still three paper grocery bags full of plums. We now have 16 pints of lovely jam (20 jars in all of different sizes), and we are sick of plums. Hopefully, he will be able to take the rest to the office and let people take what they want, or I can call the gleaners, or there is always the compost pile. Tomorrow he will probably pick the apricots, and we get to start all over again. I have a big pot on the stove with leftover plums and a few apricots which I plan to blend up into puree and freeze. I have several recipes that use either pumpkin or applesauce, and it doesn't really matter what the puree is, it still works in the recipe. One is an applesauce cake from Have Your Cake and Eat It Too, and one is a pumpkin muffin from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain book.

In addition to the plums, I put up many chilis and red peppers using a method of removing the skin that I saw on the Barefoot Contessa yesterday. I usually take them to my Dad's and toast them over the flame on his gas stove, but this year I baked them in the oven ala BC, and it was much much easier. Except for the one batch that turned into charcoal when I didn't hear the timer. After they were out of the oven and finished steaming in a bowl, I removed the skins, chopped them up, then stored them in ziplock bags. Now I have the main ingredient for future posole and chili verde waiting in my freezer.

I am stalling instead of putting the buttons in that green shirt, so I better just go get started.