Pickled Peppers

As we move deeper into fall and away from the bounty of summer's harvest, I've made some efforts to preserve some summery foods recently, knowing full well what long months of potatoes, kale, and root vegetables lie ahead after last winter. But it's been a kind of half-hearted effort because there's not much you can fit into this freezer. I could have tried to can stuff, but that scares me and I was too lazy to do enough research to figure out how to get over my fear of botulism.


You can't see it all very well because it's hidden by more usual freezer goods such as tupperwared lunches and various flours and coffee, but my freezer now contains: five ears of corn; six quarts of raspberries; two quarts of oven-dried grape tomatoes,; about 8 oven-dried red pepper strips; and three small bags of quartered tomatoes. I can't imagine that will last me very long this coming winter, but it will at least be good for some casseroles, flavored dips and breads, soups and pastas. I let the berries freeze spread out on a flat tray at first, before combining them in a tupperware, so that I'll be able to scoop them out for smoothies, baked goods, and pancakes as needed.

My mom grew an overabundance of cubanelle and banana peppers in her vegetable garden this year, so I've happily taken a bunch off her hands to make pickled peppers. Jesse loves jars of hot peperoncinis, which is what inspired me to try making something similar at home. The recipe is based loosely off Jen's recipe for pickling cucumbers, adapted for making just one pint jar at a time and based on what I have on hand. My first batch didn't have enough heat for the mister, so I also added some jalapenos from the Greenmarket into my most recent batch, and hopefully they'll turn out hotter and spicier. I also must say that I think I like pickled peppers better than my homemade pickled cucumbers (that's why you never even heard about them on here). And I think these peppers would be great on a turkey and cheese sandwich...in fact I might just make that for a picnic this weekend.


Pickled Banana Peppers

3/4 cup hot tap water
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
4 cloves garlic
1 tsbp pickling spice
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tbsp whole peppercorns
Several (about a quart) of banana or cubanelle peppers
A few jalapeno or other hot peppers

Combine brine ingredients in a large liquid measuring cup (this will make it easier to pour into the jar later than if you were using a bowl) and stir until salt and sugar are dissolved.

Chop peppers into desired size - strips, chunks, or (my favorite) round crossections.

Place one third of the peppers into a clean glass pint jar, and pour a third of the brine over the peppers. Repeat until jar is full, compressing peppers as needed (a lot more will fit in one jar than you might expect!), and make sure to scoop any straggler spices out of the measuring cup and into the jar.

Refrigerate for a week before eating; pickles will stay good in the fridge for up to a month.

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Perfect Spring Dinner

Now that it's spring, what better way to celebrate than to head to Brooklyn Botanic Garden to see the cherry trees in bloom. Admission is free on Saturdays if you can manage to get there before noon. So last weekend after our hearty breakfast of eggs and ramps, we biked down to the BBG. Well I thought it would be mostly downhill. I'm not sure why, except that going south always seems like it should correspond with going downhill. Little did I know that it would actually be uphill most of the way on Washington Ave to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I guess that would be why they call it Prospect Heights. I was huffing and puffing, and the hill seemed to have no end, with just ten minutes to go before noon. But we managed to make it with minutes to spare. And it was worth it to see tons of pink cherry trees in full bloom.


I particularly liked the culinary beds, to indulge in fantasies of my own vegetable garden. I think swiss chard is such a pretty plant, with its bright colors and shiny leaves.


I also liked the garden paths winding around a pond with Japanese sculptures, lined with elegant weeping cherry trees, willows, and Japanese maples, complete with cute turtles sunbathing on rocks!



There weren't a lot of flowers out this early in the spring, but there were pretty tulips.


I'd like to go back later in the summer to see how the garden changes with the seasons, to enjoy more colorful flowers, and to see how the vegetables and herbs in the culinary beds have grown.


Later that night we enjoyed a great dinner that felt so wonderfully springy because I was lucky enough to find the first asparagus of the season at the Greenmarket the day before. I snapped the tough ends off the asparagus, rolled them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then roasted them for 10 minutes at 400. Meanwhile, I let some quinoa simmer away while Jesse pan-fried thin flounder filets in olive oil and seasoned them with salt pepper.


To top it off, I mixed up an herb mayonnaise using garlic, lemon juice, and some parsley from my urban garfunkel garden. I'm not a big fan of quinoa. Although Jesse loves it for its high protein content, and we often substitute it for pasta or rice for that reason, I think it has a dull soft taste that can sometimes ruin a dish. But with a dollop of lemony fresh mayonnaise, the quinoa was transformed into something I could enjoy. And that is something to cheer about.


We enjoyed dinner with cold mugs of Wiesen Edel-weisse beer. It cloudy wheaty bright taste, great for warm spring or summer days, was the perfect complement to our meal.

My Urban Garfunkel Garden

In just spring, when the world is puddlewonderful.
- e.e. cummings


Yesterday was such a beautiful early spring day. The sun was shining, New York City was bustling with people and plants and life, and I was in an unusually good mood. I've been feeling perpetually grouchy lately, but the warm day filled me with promise of brightness and warmth and happiness before me. As my fried Jessica put it, the day lent a nostalgia for what we knew was to come as in summers past: lazy hot days, sipping cool beers in gardens, lounging around lush parks, walking in warm twilights and nights.


I started out the morning with visits to both McCarren Park and Union Square greenmarkets. The little trays of herbs and plants at the market called to me, and I was determined to make today the day I finally got my urban garden going. My mom is an ardent gardener, and I grew up surrounded by beautiful lawns and flowers, and ate fresh broccoli and peppers from her vegetable garden. But personally, I never had any motivation to get down with the dirt and manual labor of gardening.


Until I started to explore local eating, and realized that the most local way of all is from your own backyard. Or in my case, from a container garden on my miniscule deck. I feel lucky enough in Brooklyn to have any outdoor space at all past a fire escape - ours is a little wooden deck with a grill and a rusty chair, used mostly when cigarette smokers visit. As well, I can walk out onto a small roof space from my window, where the warmth of the black tar will be good for tomatoes and basil later this summer I think.


Without meaning to, I selected flats of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme from the Blew Farm stand, just as in the Simon and Garfunkel song. Back at home, I was lucky enough to have potting soil left over from the previous tenants. And I had some indoor plants that were on their last legs, from the dry heat in our apartment and the ravages of our dog's teeth. So I pulled out the old plants and gently potted the new baby herbs and set them out on our little deck.


I also had a packet of mixed greens seeds that were a Christmas gift. I was too lazy to start the seeds inside a few weeks ago, so I planted them directly into a container bought at Home Depot. Now I cross my fingers and hope that the seeds will sprout, and that I'll be able to enjoy homemade salads before the oppressive New York summer heat kills them.

And so now, I wait, for nature to run its course. For fickle, blustery early spring to warm around the edges, for plants to sprout, for fresh crunchy vegetables to appear in the farmers market, for my herbs to grow tall. And in waiting, must not forget that I need not wait for warm weather to feel alive.