The Modern Victory Garden

Fall has arrived with a grand flourish.   The Japanese maple trees in the front of our place have turned a flaming red - almost glowing in the gloomy overcast conditions we have been experiencing for the past several days.     

The garden crops are now almost exclusively fall and winter items with the exception of the pepper plants that continue to flourish in the protection of the greenhouse.   Yesterday I pulled the first of the 2009 parsnips and a few carrots to fix for dinner.                                                      

These were sliced up and sautéed in butter until tender and sweet.   Not the biggest specimens but I was trying to do a little thinning and pulled some roots that were too crowded.                       

My husband and I spent several hours today prowling around the waterfront shops in Poulsbo.   We also stopped at Valley Nursery hoping to find some Heritage raspberries to purchase so we could fill in where some of our spring planted bare root stock did not thrive.   Unfortunately, they did not have any Heritage plants and I really was not willing to settle for anything else.   I ended up buying a large bag of purple onion sets while I was there - but no raspberries.   When I got home, I planted about 24 of the onion sets next to the fall planted multiplier onions.       

The peppers in the greenhouse have been continuing to do well and the Early Jalapeno plants in particularly were in need of some harvesting.   Late this afternoon I picked quite a few of them and a handful of ripe mini bell peppers.         

Since I have several bags of sliced and frozen peppers and several jars of pickled peppers, I decided to roast these peppers first before freezing them.   The peppers were split and the seeds removed and then placed on a hot grill until the skins began to char and crack.                    

The peppers were then immediately placed in a brown paper bag that was then sealed shut and allowed to sit for about 10 to 15 minutes.   When removed from the bag the peppers were ready for the charred skin to be easily peeled off.               

The mini bells are not a very meaty pepper so the removal of the skins was a little less than easy but the Jalapeno peppers roasted up nicely and the skins came off quite handily.              

 The aroma of roasting peppers is really quite wonderful.   I could not resist them and ended up eating a few as I was doing the grilling.    Scrumptious!   These will be nice to have for future meals.