Burning fingers and fantastic smell

Hi!

I've been slicing chiles half afternoon, in order to put them in the dryer. I'm going to make chile flakes and powder of them :-)

Here is what I'm going to make. A mix of green dedo de moça, and green peru yellow.

And another mix of trepadeiro werner and piriz.

 And som red habaneros.

The smell from the dryer is fantastic. I wish it was possible to make a recording of it, so I could share it with you. :-)

I didn't use any gloves while working on the chiles, so my fingers are on fire right now. So a friendly advice - if you're going to do this at home - remember to protect your fingers. 

Wishing you a great week!
  Mats

(Final) harvest - almost

Hi!

A small harvest for lunch. On the top, there is CGN 21500. A very nice C. chinense. Good heat, and fantastic flavor that fills your mouth. Clockwise, we have dedo de moca, immature trepadeiro Werner, Peru yellow and ripe trepadeiro.

I have kept the plants out on the balcony until now. The warm autumn has done wonders for the peppers. They were all very late because of the slow start of the summer, but now we are in sync :-)

Here are some that I picked today. Will get back with better pictures. Clockwise. Top - trepadeiro,  piriz, aji dulce and dedo de moca.

Not everything is about chile peppers. We have the Chinese Navy visiting Stockholm. It's been a wonderful day. I think everybody was out in the warm weather :-)

Wishing you all a great hot weekend!
   Mats

A small harvest

Hi,
  I was hoping to take some pictures of the ripe pods today. But it's really windy, and it's more or less impossible to get a sharp image. Well, maybe tomorrow.

I picked some dedo de moca and trepadeiro werner. Perfect with lunch :-) The trepadeiro werner is new for me. I reallly like the taste and heat. A very nice baccatum.

Have a great weekend!
  Mats

End of August

Hi!

A small update. Not much happening with the plants right now. All of them are out on the balcony, and I have not decided if I will save some for the winter. There are some nice varieties, and I like to have a quick start in 2015. So probably I will save a few. Maybe at least one of my malaguetas. We'll see. It depends on how they look in a couple of weeks :-)

Here are the ones that I picked today. For lunch. To the left, there is a baccatum. A no-name. And to the right is a chinense - Rio. Both with their distinctive taste. Not to mention the smell. When I slice them, the smell is absolutely fantastic! It almost fills the whole kitchen!

Wishing you all a great week!

Regards,
  Mats

Sunday lunch

Hi!

The tiny ne to the left is a Goatsweed. It's really hot. Not like a chinense, but with an immediate heat that causes the taste buds on my tongue to shut down :-)

Number 2 and 3 from the left are from Brazil. A baccatum with a name that is unknown to me. A nice baccatum taste :-) Not so hot.

And the three ones to the right are dedo de moça. From seeds that I brought from Brazil last year. Its hotter than the old ones that I have grown for many years. Not as good taste. And the pods are thinner. Dedo = finger in Portuguese, and moça means girl. It's good. But not one that I will grow another year.

Wishing you a great week to come!

Hot regards,
  Mats

Dedo de moça - harvest

Wow! Dedo de moça for lunch. In the end of May. That's a record for me.

I was afraid that they had ripened too early, stressed by the weather or something. But there was absolutely nothing wrong with the taste and heat.

Yesterday I removed the net that covered the plants. From now on, they are on their own :-) The wind and sun being the worst enemies. But it will be fine in the end...

Wishing you all a great week to come!
   Mats

Lunch!

Hi!

Parts of our lunch yesterday :-) Aji norteño and a canario + some sprouts. Perfect combination on crisp bread.

Wishing you all a great week to come!

Hot regards,
  Mats

Late harvest

After chasing aphids for most of the year, it's nice to be able to pick some pods.

Here are some orange baccatum. Sharp heat and nice taste.

And here are some Florida Bird Peppers drying. They have a dry heat. I guess they are like chewing on gunpowder :-)

And here are some Chuquisac. Mild baccatum with a nice taste.

Well, dinner is served :-)

Hot regards,
  Mats

A small chuquisac harvest

I'm definitely not spoiled to harvesting chiles this year. But today we had two ripe Chuquisac pods.

Two nice pods. They were mild but with very nice taste.

Now I hope that the warm weather for the season continues, so the rest of the pods will turn yellow.

More chuquisac pictures here: http://petterssononline.com/habanero/peppers.php?action=variety&id=1238

Hot regards,
   Mats

Thank you for these two years - Tabasco

I'm sort of half-panicking about how to reclaim the space in the flat... So after the dedo de moça and habanero, it was time to say bye bye to the tabasco.

It's really a very nice plant. But it was too big. So it had to go. But Capsicum frutescens is good. It has the "peppery" taste, quite high heat, and I love the way it attacks my tongue. It's not like any other Capsicum. This heat is in a way "mean", massaging your tongue, not letting go.

The question. What to do with the harvested peppers. I think I will dry most of them. The thin flesh of the tabasco makes it not so suitable for freezing, so it will be great to dry. But I think I will put some of them in vinegar and/or oil for future use. Nice problems :-)

Tabasco chiles on a tabasco tray :-)

Have a nice week!

Hot regards,
  Mats

Picking peppers

I'm running out of patience with the big plants. Especially the two year old habanero and dedo de moça. So today I decided to take them away. Not an easy decision, but I need to make space for the plants next year.

Here is the stem from the habanero. Carl saved pieces of it to play with.

And here are the pods. I counted them. 128. I don't know how many hundred pods I have picked earlier, but it has been a fantastic chile pepper year!

Next one to be harvested was the dedo de moça. It's the same height as Carl, and he's 155 cm tall...

And here is how the stems look like.

And here is parts of the harvest. Yes, there are some green ones. I don't think they are as good as the red. But they will make a great green powder.

Drying the green ones...

One thing I have learned with chiles is to not rub my eyes after doing this kind of work...

While I'm writing this, there is a heavenly smell from the dryer. More later.

Hot regards,
Mats

Here we go again - 318 serranos

Today I decided to give in for the pressure. Time to get rid of the two serrano pots.  So follow me into the jungle and join for the harvest ritual :-)

Here, Carl is helping me again.

And here I am helping Carl :-)

And here is the result

We gave it a try to count them, and in total we picked 318 serranos today. The weight! Over a kilo :-)

Life is great!

Have a fantastic weekend!
   Mats

Harvesting again

This is fun. Carl is helping me a lot, and here he is sorting some dedo de moça. Isn't it beautiful? :-)

While I'm busy fixing some habaneros for drying.

The ones that I don't dry, we eat as they are.

Seventy three habaneros!

Coming home this afternoon, I picked 73 nice habaneros!

I think I have some nice activities to do later tonight. On my list is to dry some of them so I can make a good powder and some flakes.

The rest I'm going to put in the freezer for later use.

Harvest time

Phew! Talk about a weekend in the spirit och chile peppers!

Here Carl and I are picking some habaneros. In total we harvested 79 habaneros (572 grams on the kitchen scale), and there are plenty more left on the plant. Nice! I love the taste of them.

Happy me :-)

Carl is well over 150 cm, so it's not a tiny plant.

Can I eat it? :-)

"Team chinense" picking the tiny berries. In total, Carl counted to 482 harvested chinense. But there are so many more left on the plant.

 Our special "chile counter" keeping track of the harvest.

Yum! Eighty one Peru Yellow and seventy nine habaneros!


More later! Have a fantastic Sunday!

Forty three

I decided that today was a good day for picking some peppers. Actually I picked forty three. It is definitely not a lot, but considering that Carl and I did our best for lunch, eating four serranos, that leaves me with 39 hot chiles on the plus side.

The serranos were so hot, so I got hickups, and even scared Carl, so he almost dropped the spoon :-) It's interesting. I thought that after eating home grown chile peppers for fifteen years, I should be used to it. But sometimes, that special heat comes, and it's really hard to be prepared for it.

Some other varieties that I picked were rocopica, Patriks chinense and chacoense. A nice bunch of chiles :-)

There are more ripe fruits out on the balcony. But I couldn't pick my peru yellow and dedo de moça. Simply because I think they are so beautiful just as they are!

Here is my peru yellow. I had a hard time to break through the "jungle" in order to take this picture. But it shows some of the beauty.

And here is my dedo de moça. My good old overwintered plant from 2009, delivering lots and lots of nice baccatum fruits.

Have a nice weekend!

These yellow ones are really hot. Two is enough!

That's what Carl said when he had picked these two for lunch.

And I think he is right. This year, our Peru Yellow is hotter than I remember. It's still one of my favorite chiles. Thin, crisp flesh with a fresh taste of citrus. Yum!

Fresh chiles and crisp bread

These days when we have unusually high temperatures here in Stockholm, it's good to see that the chiles are ripening at high speed :-) Today it's 31C, and there is a fantastic smell of flowers on the balcony.

So for lunch I picked two dedo de moça and one peru yellow. Yum! I think that these baccatum have the perfect heat.

So, how do we eat them? I just chop them and put on crisp bread. A true delicacy :-) What I really find amazing is the Carl (8 years old) also have adopted the taste for hot chiles on crisp bread. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree :-)