Final rocoto harvest

Summer and the chile pepper jungle on the balcony feels distant. But I have had some plants left, waiting for the pods to mature.

Today it was time. To pick the last pods on my rocoto and rocopica.

The rocoto has been living on the floor in our living room the last couple of weeks. It was too big to move.

I was positively surprised. I picked 35 pods on one plant! Doesn't this look great?

So now we have 1,626 kg rocoto to eat.

Do you have any nice recipes to share?

Hot regards,
Mats

Hot sauce

Inspired from a conversation with Rune a couple of weeks ago, and from Patrik yesterday, I decided to make a hot sauce of my tiny tiny chinense fruits.

It took me well over and hour to remove the stems from the fruits. Talk about mindfulness. One pod at a time. Just being there present in the now :-)

Here they are, getting ready to be processed.

These fruits have a very tropical flavour, so I added the juice from a couple of limes and some salt. And some water. I put it all in a saucepan and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.

And here is the final result. A super hot, super good all purpose sauce. Great on everything!

Update:
I'm not sure for how long this sauce keeps fresh, since I don't use any preservatives. Except for the lime juice and salt. Thanks Marco and Patrik for bringing this up :-)


Have a hot week!

Ashwagandha "harvest"

It's funny. I have looked at the fruits on my ashwagandha, but I didn't think they contained any seeds or berries. They look like physalis and tomatillo, hiding the fruits inside.

Today I felt adventurous and picked the pods that looked ripe and opened them. And I was surprised to find small red fruits inside.

Here we have Carl helping me :-)

And this is how the pods and fruits look like.

I wonder if they are edible, and/or what they are good for. Anyone who knows?

Update:
Now I know. Don't eat the fruits. The seeds have some poisonous properties. Seeds and flowers are used in some medicinal preparation as diuretic and to
coagulate milk. Mostly the roots and leaves are used in ayurvedic medicine. Roots are dried and powdered.

Fenugreek harvest

This is the "harvest" from growing fenugreek this year. Well, not that it's a huge effort, but I must say that I expected some more.

 

Fenugreek is a great spice that I use in more and more cooking.

The seeds are used as a spice, and the green leaves are used as a herb. I use the green leaves with chicken and fish. It is commonly used in ayurvedic cooking because of its cleansing properties.

Refried beans from the crazy jalapeño chef

Friday evening, and I have cooked my favorite refried beans together with some nachos.

Here is a recipe that you can try instead of buying cans with refried beans.

Refried beans
2-3 hg beans. I use red large beans that I cook for about 1,5 hours.
1 medium onion
garlic
Chiles to taste
Salt
Garlic
Cooking oil

I put the chile peppers, onion and garlic in my mixer, and chop it fine. I put the mix in a warm frying pan, cooking it until the onions are soft / transparent.

Then I put the beans in the mixer and chop them fine. I put the chopped beans in the pan, stirring, adding some water and let them cook for 20-30 minutes.

At the end I add salt to taste.

It's really easy to do, and they beans taste really great!

And - best of all, you can use any chiles you want. Today I used one of the yellow burkinas that we got from Kaili last Sunday. Super hot :-)

Enjoy!

It is working :-)

Days like this, especially when we have early snow, the chile pepper growing season feels very distant. This is how it looked this morning...

So, it makes me extra happy to see the progress in my ZENGROW. My "test" basil, peppermint and tulsi are doing fine. I have added the first nutrition tablet, and the small plants are developing very nicely.

Have a hot weekend!
   Mats

Closing "Het Höst"

Today was the last day of the "Het Höst" exhibition. We were a bunch of growers gathering after the closing, to either collect our plants, or just to pick the fruits.

Here we have Carl getting ready to pick our chilipiquin pods.

Patrik is in heaven. Like a child in a toy store? :-)

Mia.

Kaili, Patrik & Carl.

I sampled a rocopica, and entertained my surroundings with a good attack of hickups. I never seem to learn :-) Or maybe, I don't want to learn!

Thanks to Kaili, Patrik & Mia and everyone who made this exhibition possible.