daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
I brought all our pepper plants inside when the overnight temperatures started dropping into the 40s F and now they are almost ready to harvest! I was a little sad that I had spent so much time all year caring for them only to have the heat and cold deny us a harvest, but it looks like we’ll get to enjoy a few peppers at least. Yay!
I brought in these peppers before the freeze comes. Our last harvest of the year! Which is fine because I need to start the new seedlings right when the new year begins. Harvesting peppers in November and December is too late for us.
A couple of our Serrano pepper plants are finally bearing fruit. I can’t believe it took so long this year! I guess we’ll have to start them a couple of months earlier in 2023.
I’m so excited that I have some new chili/hot sauces to try! My friend Rebecca at Rebecca Goes Rendezvous recommended the Laoganma “Fried Chili in Oil” sauce, and a chat group I am part of recommended the Fly By Jing “Sichuan Chili Crisp”. And also, my mom send me a bunch of Scotch Bonnet peppers that she grew in her garden. Now that’s a lot of fire in one photo!
And Mariko baked a few loaves of cat-shaped bread, so I had to include that in today’s photo. 🐱🍞
So many good things to look forward to!
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today was a great day because I got to make a big batch of chili. 🌶 We’ve tried a few chili recipes over the years, but the ones we like always have dried Guajillo peppers in it. These give the chili a deep red color and a wonderful flavor. Just be careful because the red color will easily stain clothes!
Anyways, I usually buy a dozen Guajillo peppers at our local market, then boil them for about 15 minutes to rehydrate them. Next, I put them in our Cuisinart food processor with maybe half a cup of the water, then process until almost smooth. Adding this chili paste to the pot makes it “real” to me. Chili just isn’t the same without it! And I love to make chili because it means I get to pull out our largest Le Creuset pot. Yay!
With each pot of chili I make, I will adjust with different ingredients, sometimes out of necessity. For instance, this time I didn’t have the can of tomato paste I normally add, so I used some pasta sauce we had in the fridge. And I didn’t have the usual dark beer that the recipe calls for, and I didn’t want to use the IPA we had), so I just used more of the water I boiled the chiles in. I also added a bit of white vinegar and shoyu (soy sauce) to the mix, which is new.
I have to say, it turned out really good! And we have enough to last us a few days. 😄
Bay and I had the chili over steamed rice, with cheese, raw jalapeño, raw habañero (for me), sour cream, and a bit of hot sauce. And a runny egg, of course! Because we put it over rice, we call it “Chili-Gohan”, with the word Gohan being Japanese for rice or meal. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
I hope you had a delicious day!
またね～
