Pa Sportman's Club Sweet-Hot Wax Peppers

When I was a very young child, living in a small coal-mining town in Western Pa, my mother helped the family scrape-by serving at the local sportsman's club. I can barely remember the place, only the lake out front which hosted local fishing contests and giant bullfrogs. But she remembers a pepper relish that was served at every table with white bread and butter, and has been asking me to make it for months now. Well, peppers are in season and the subject of this month's , so I gave it a shot, and gosh-darn is it good!

5 pint jars, lids and rings, sterilized
1 1/2# hungarian wax peppers
1/2# baby sweet peppers (added for color)
1/2 sweet onion, julienne
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups water
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tsp canning salt


Slice peppers into rings, removing seed pods. Mix with garlic and onion. Bring vinegar, water, sugar and salt to a boil. Tightly pack pepper mix into sterilized jars, fill with brine, and attach lids and rings. Process for ten minutes. Here, I'm having mine on wheat bread with cream cheese.

Kashmir Chile Pepper Chutney

Once again, I'm amazed at how different my husband and I can be. While I cooked up twelve half-pints of apple butter and 5 pints of hot pepper rings (both very simple recipes from my childhood), Joe lovingly labored over two half-pints of pepper jam, grinding his own Garam Masala in a mortar and pestle, tasting and re-tasting until perfection was achieved. And I must say, it was worth it. This chutney is incredibly well balanced in sourness, sweetness and heat, and set quite beautifully, as well. We could build an Indian feast around this jam, and probably soon will.


2 1/2 pints, lids and rings, sterilized
1# mixed peppers, including Red Bell, Poblano, Cubanelle, Serrano, Finger Hot, Jalapeno and Habanero
1/2 sweet onion
1 Tbsp canola oil
2 Tbsp garlic and ginger paste
1 Tbsp garam masala spice mix (see note*)
2/3 cup rice vinegar
juice of 2 limes
1 cup sugar


Small dice peppers and onions, removing the seeds and membranes (or not for a much hotter version) from all but the fingerhot and serrano peppers. We sliced these two into thin rings. Heat oil in a small pot and sweat vegetables on medium-low heat, about ten minutes. Add garlic and ginger paste and cook another five minutes. Add spice mix, lime juice, vinegar and sugar and reduce until the chutney is thickened, about ten more minutes. Ladle into jars, attach lids and rings and process for ten minutes.



Note* Garam Masala is a warm (not hot) spice mix typical of the northwest region of India, including Kashmir and Punjab. You could buy it in an Indian market, but blending your own spices gives you a much more fresh and intense flavor, and you may also alter it according to your own tastes. Ours included, in order of mass, largest to smallest: cardamom, allspice, anise seed, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, fennel, and cloves.

Old Fashioned Apple Butter

Okay, I've got something to fess up to: I miss autumn. I miss the leaves changing colors, and that crisp feeling in the air. I miss pulling out a cozy sweater to visit the nearest pumpkin patch and drinking fresh apple cider at Reeger's Farm fall festival. But since winter and snow inevitably must follow, I will stay here in perpetual summer and honor the season the best way I can- with food.
I will make chili and roast chicken, bake pumpkin pies and zucchini bread and slather it with apple butter just like the Amish make at Smicksburg. Of course, no one here sells good old fashioned homemade apple butter, so I had to make it myself. Here's how-


12 1/2 pint jars, lids and rings, sterilized
10# sweet apples (I used NY Honey Crisp)
2 cups water
1-2 Cups brown sugar (depending on the sweetness of your apples)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground clove

Wash and cut apples into one inch chunks. I removed the core, but left the skin on. In a large pot, cook apples with two cups water on medium-high heat until very soft. Pass apples through a Foley food mill into a medium size pot. At this point you could add the sugar and spices and process as apple sauce. For butter, cook apple puree on very low, just barely a simmer, stirring every fifteen minutes, until reduced by half. Mine took about three hours to reach this point. Make sure to partially cover it as you cook, as it tends to splatter quite a bit, but also needs an opening for steam to escape.
As it reaches the appropriate thickness add the sugar and spices. Begin with one cup sugar, adding more to taste. For the last step, to make it more apple buttery, I used a hand-held immersion blender to smooth it out. You could also use a blender. This is an important step so do not skip it. Otherwise, your apple butter will just look like very thick apple sauce. Ladle into sterilized jars and process ten minutes.
Because this is so time consuming, and creates a lot of dishes to wash, I do not recommend making any less than ten pounds at a time. You could even double it, provided you have pots large enough to cook that many apples. And given your family is all going to want a jar, that would probably be a good idea.

September Stonefruits

There's something about stone fruits that reminds me of the far-east, spices, tea and whimsical settings.



When I took on canning, I had in my mind images of my parents canning shelves, filled with spaghetti sauce- enough for a year- and my grandma's basement pantry bursting with peaches in syrup, pickled peppers and enough applesauce for the entire family to take some home when we visited.
And though I still hold these lofty goals of putting up an entire year's worth of, well, anything, every month my projects seem to morph into more of a creative experiment than a canning project.
Here I would like to insert some intelligent, Taoist Lao-Tzu quote, but instead I keep thinking of one of my former Chef's favorite sayings, which just seems to say it best- "It is what is is."


Imperial Stone Fruit Preserves
6 1/2 pint jars, lids and rings, sterilized
6 pounds mixed stone fruits
(I used 3 peaches, 2 nectarines, and an assortment of 6 plums)
zest of 1 orange
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lime
juice of 1 orange
juice of 1/2 lemon
juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 tsp 5-spice powder
1/2 tsp ginger sea salt (substitute 1/8 tsp ginger powder and 1/2 tsp sea salt)
3 green tea teabags
1 cup sugar

Blanch fruit in boiling water for 30 seconds to one minute, move to ice water bath and remove skins. Cut fruits into thin slices. In a medium pot, bring fruits, zest, juice, and spices to a low simmer. In a small pot bring 1 cup water to a boil, add tea bags and let steep four minutes. Remove teabags and reduce tea to 1/2 cup. Add tea and sugar to fruit and let simmer until syrupy and passes a set-test, about 40 minutes. Ladle into jars, wipe rims and attach rings and process 10 minutes.


This one is Joe's creation- dark, rich and mysterious in flavor, this confiture would pair with sweets as well as a glass of Cabernet and a thick slice of manchego cheese.

Cherry Cacao Confiture
1 1/2 pint jar and 1 1/4 pint jar, lids and rings, sterilized
1 3/4 pounds dark cherries (1 1/2 pounds pitted)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 cloves, ground
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
dash sea salt
1/2 cup sugar

Wash and pit cherries. In a small pot combine cherries, balsamic vinegar, clove, cinnamon, cocoa powder, vanilla and salt and bring to a low simmer. Let simmer until confiture begins to thicken. Add sugar and stir often, until it reaches a syrupy consistency, about 25 minutes. Ladle into jars, wipe rims, attach lids and rings and process for 10 minutes.

And just in case you wanted to know how to make the scones- here's the extremely easy recipe for those, too.

Whole Wheat Almond Scones
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup sliced almonds, plus 2 Tbsp
1/3 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup
3/4 cup milk, plus 2 Tbsp

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift flours, baking powder and salt together. Cut in cold butter. Incorporate almonds and 1/3 cup sugar, then stir in 3/4 cup milk. Bring together dough on a floured surface and form into a large disk. Cut into eight pieces, brush the top with 2 Tbsp milk, sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar and 2 Tbsp almonds. Move pieces to a baking sheet and bake for 12 minutes. Remove and serve with an assortment of jams and whipped cream.

Joe's Giardiniera

With two chefs in our kitchen, there are always two ways of doing everything. As a married couple, you would think that the spirit of compromise would lead us to something of a hybrid recipe for the dishes we create, but somehow it never works out that way. Normally, one of us will come up with an idea and bring it to life, with the other tweaking it and offering insight along the way. While I really like to be the "chef", it is also interesting to be the "sous-chef", and see what comes out of the mind of another person when left to their own artistry.
Here, for example, is Joe's Giardiniera (compare to my version several months ago). It is miraculous to imagine these two very distinct recipes came from the same basic ingredients.

8 pint jars, lids and rings
1 bunch celery, sliced
1 head cauliflower, cut to florets
2 large hungarian wax peppers, sliced (with seeds for hot, no seeds for mild)
4 small onions, quartered
1 large zucchini, sliced
1 lb. carrots, sliced
1/2 lb. green beans
1 Tbsp. oregano
1 bulb garlic, sliced
1 Tbsp. peppercorns
5 Cups water
5 Cups vinegar
2 Tbsp. canning salt
2 Tbsp. sugar

Mix all vegetables except garlic in a bowl with oregano. Bring water, vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil to dissolve salt and sugar; cover and hold. Sterilize jars, lids and rings. Divide garlic and peppercorns among jars. Pack vegetables into jars and top with brine. Attach lids and rings and process for ten minutes.

¡Fire Roasted Salsa Verde!

I have a fantasy of opening my pantry to find 52 jars of plain diced tomatoes, one per week for a whole year. Since finding out store-bought tomatoes contain high levels of BPA due to the acidity of the contents, we have sworn off canned tomatoes- a former staple of our pantry. Fresh tomatoes have replaced them, but won't be in season forever. It was my intention to do this project for the can-jam, but local Florida tomato prices are still a bit high, so I've decided to put off the larger venture until fall when tomatoes are both juicier and less expensive..
So, for this month's here is a fun version of Salsa Verde, and because we were already grilling corn, we threw the chiles on, too, for some extra fire roasted flavor. My only regret is not doubling the recipe!

3 1/2 pint jars, lids and rings, sterilized
5 tomatillos
segments of 1 giant lime (or 3 small ones)
1/2 large white onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 poblano chile
3 jalapeno chiles
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar (optional, depending on sweetness/sourness of your tomatillos)
1/4 tsp coriander
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp white pepper
2 Tbsp cilantro, chopped

Grill or broil chiles until charred, steam in a bag and remove skin; dice with membranes for hot salsa, remove membranes for mild salsa. Puree 3 tomatillos and lime segments in a blender then push through a sieve, reserving juices. In a medium pot reduce juice to about 1/4 cup. Dice remaining 2 tomatillos and add to juice with onion, garlic, chiles and spices. Bring to a low simmer (just enough to cook out a bit of the rawness) and stir in cilantro. Ladle salsa into sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes.

Pregnancy Pickles: Round 2

After opening the previous batch of pickles Joe and I realized that maybe we had gone a bit overboard in the spice department (the horseradish pickles could cure a toothache). So I went easy on these ones and made a very simple pickling spice mix. I also lowered the amount of salt, as the previous pickles were just a little salty for our taste, though the vinegar was perfect. So here is my revised version of pregnancy pickles, which, as you can see, may be used for more than just cucumbers.

Plain Ol' Pregnancy Pickles
4 cups vinegar
3 cups water
3 Tbsp canning salt
3 tsp sugar

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp black peppercorns
1 Tbsp mustard seed
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp dried dill leaf

Sanitize jars, lids and rings. Divide spice mix among jars and fill with product and brine. Wipe rims, attach lids and rings and process small jars for 5 minutes, large jars for 10 minutes.