Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Harvests are slowing down here, as we transition from summer to fall. The peppers are still ripening fast and furious though, and they are keeping me busy. I started a batch of hot sauce with a mix of Maule’s Red Hot and Aji Amarillo, plus a few of the Not Frigitello peppers that proved to be hot and not sweet as they should be.
Senorita jalapeno and Maule’s Red Hot peppers
I also got enough of the Senorita and Fooled You jalapeno peppers to smoke and turn into chipotles. I smoked a test batch of the Senorita peppers a couple of weeks ago, and they made a tasty chipotle powder that was milder in heat than that I made last year. It’s still plenty hot, just a bit less so! The Fooled You jalapenos have no heat, and adding a few of them should lower the overall heat level a notch or two.
peppers for smoking
The first of the Malawi Piquante peppers are ripening now too, at least the ones on the container grown plant. I pickled these along with a few more of the Aji Golden peppers in a sweet brine. The Malawi Piquante peppers are ‘similar’ to the ones used to make the pricey, trademarked Peppadew peppers you can find on salad bars and in grocery stores.
Fooled You jalapeno and Malawi Piquante peppers
In the sweet pepper department, the yellow Escamillo and red Carmen are ripening now. They are both bull’s horn peppers and AAS Winners, and Escamillo may be the best tasting yellow sweet pepper I have ever grown. Carmen is a long time favorite here, but I can see Escamillo becoming a favorite too. I have already made a note on my 2017 plans to grow more of these two! Meanwhile we will enjoy eating these, some of which I grilled and others I used in a quinoa ‘fried rice’ dish I cooked up last week.
Escamillo and Carmen peppers
It’s not all peppers here though. I cut the first of the fall kale last week, starting with the White Russian. The kale will be sweeter when really cold weather arrives, but this was pretty tasty too, especially when we haven’t had any kale for a few months. The cabbage moths have really been active here, and I’ve been spraying a neem oil/Bt mix to keep the caterpillars controlled.
White Russian kale
Most of the tomato plants are taking a break, but I’m still finding enough of the small fruited ones for salads and such. I got a nice bunch of Sunrise Bumblebee and Purple Bumblebee to add to a salad we had for lunch one day.
Sunrise Bumblebee and Purple Bumblebee tomatoes
I baked two of the Early Butternut squashes to use in a couple of dishes last week. One was a Pumpkin Cake recipe from the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book that uses a mix of whole wheat and barley flours. This recipe is pretty close, though I used less sugar and varied the spices a bit.
baked Early Butternut squash
The other dish was a pasta creation using the pumpkin puree for sauce along with whole grain farro penne, a bit of the White Russian kale, chicken sausage, and seasoned with garlic and fresh garden sage. I think it tasted better than it looked, and satisfied my craving for both butternut squash and pasta without requiring a lot of kitchen time. Of course then we had pumpkin cake for dessert! I put the rest of the cake in the freezer to enjoy later before I ate it all up.
pasta with butternut sauce and kale
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
So many peppers! I should try your easy way of roasting butternut squash. I scrape all the seeds out. Thanks for the tip!
I love the red and yellow in this post, your butternut squash pasta has got me inspired. Although i’ve made pasta with butternut squash many times, I have never used it as a sauce, you have inspired me to do so next time.
It’s all very colourful. We don’t grow hot peppers but do have some sweet peppers that stubbornly remain green.
Well, you say that the harvests are slowing down, but you have still managed to get quite a bit. Re the Butternut Squash: one of my favourite ways of eating it is roasted until very soft, then made into a soup with tomatoes and chicken stock. It gives the soup a lovely silky texture.
My Italian neighbor makes a similar pasta dish with winter squash going to give this one a try. Fooled You jalapeno peppers, cute pepper name wonder who came up with it?
Meant to ask if you cover your butternut squash when baking.
What a divine harvest of peppers!!! And your Butternut Pasta looks (and sounds) so delicious! Everyone’s Butternuts are behind here this year, so I’m anxiously awaiting harvest time so I can stash some away for the winter 🙂
Have a great week, Dave! As always, thanks for hosting!
I always look forward to viewing your pepper collection and its uses. Can you describe the difference between the Malawi pepper and an ordinary hot cherry pepper that it resembles?
The Malawi has thin walls, and is only mildly hot.
Beautiful peppers. Carmen is a favorite of mine but I will have to put Escamillo on the list to look at for next year.
A good sweet yellow pepper is always great to have in the pepper lineup. I’ll have to see if Escamillo is a candidate for my garden. The pasta dish sounds like a winner, those are some of my favorite flavor combos. I may not have to fire up my BGE this year to smoke my peppers, they are getting smoked in the garden this year. Ugh.
I think that pasta looks delicious and makes me want to grab one of my butternuts to cook some up right now! Your peppers are certainly rolling in – love all the red jalapenos. I don’t normally have the patience to wait that long for them to change colour. Funny that we both are harvesting kale again after all this time, although mine is still the spring sown kale that has been taking it’s sweet time to put on some more growth after those first few harvests.
That’s a nice assortment of peppers! I love the Fooled You jalapenos.. those plant breeders sure have a sense of humor when it comes to naming! I’m impressed that you have kale this time of year. I have some seedlings on a shaded and screened in porch that are looking sad. Turns out they are covered with aphids, on a screened in porch! Turns out the screening isn’t narrow enough to keep them out. I also love using pumpkin puree as pasta sauce.. delicious!
Nice peppers! Our summer was too cool for much of anything to turn red.
Do you have a post (or a link) that talks about different categories of peppers? I’d like to learn more.
Everything I have posted about peppers is pretty piecemeal. Michelle (From Seed To Table) does a better job than I do, her 2015 Pepper Review is good reading.
Your peppers over the last few weeks have been fantastic Dave.
Ooh, I just watched your mustard TV appearance….brilliant! And who knew that mustard was so easy to make?
Mmm, roasted butternut with pasta sounds (and looks) really good.
I grew spaghetti squash for the first time and have a plantiful harvest. what is the best wat to preserve it (I want to freezze some) for winter eats.
also
do you have pawpaw down there, and do you eat it.
I’ve never tried freezing spaghetti squash, so I don’t know how they would do. The squash themselves keep for several months in storage, so we just cook them as we need them.
As for pawpaws, we have several trees but they are not bearing fruit yet.
That pasta dish looks really great and I’m pretty jealous of your pepper harvest. That’s impressive!
Like everyone else, I think that squash and pasta dish sounds great, and I’ve actually got some squash! The variety of peppers if really amazing. I’m definitely going to try more peppers next year, and I’ll probably be reviewing your posts for help picking some varieties.