HOT PEPPER MARMALADE

There are gorgeous peppers at the Farmer's Market right now. Small ones, large ones, red, yellow, green, hot and sweet to name a few.  We had tons of hot banana peppers in our garden and I made this recipe with some of them.  Once again, the recipe comes from my most used and favorite book, Simply In Season. The book suggested using it with cheese and crackers.

I warmed a wheel of Brie cheese in a 350 degree oven until it was soft and melted (about 15 minutes) and topped it with the hot pepper marmalade about 5 minutes before removing from the oven.  What an amazing taste treat it was!

I made two batches of the marmalade and the second time I increased the hot peppers from 3 to 4 to give it a little more kick. I could easily have added yet one more hot pepper since my banana peppers were not that hot, but it probably appeals to more people if it's not too hot, so I decided to stop with 4.  The recipe calls for 3-5.  This is a very simple recipe to make and only requires a hot water bath to can the marmalade. 

My intention was to use these jars as gifts during the holidays by combining the marmalade with some special cheese and crackers in a gift basket, but the marmalade is so delicious, I want to be sure to keep some for us to enjoy!

I just found out that I can 'glean' from a field of red peppers. I can pick bushels of these peppers, so I might actually make a few more batches using red peppers and hot peppers. The recipe calls for red, green, and yellow, but I'm sure it would be much the same if using only red.

 I still have a lot of beets to harvest from our garden, but I've already canned a lot of pickled beets. We will try to store some of them, but most likely will need to give some away so they don't go to waste. Other than the beets, we still have two rows of potatoes to finish harvesting, then our 2010 gardening season is done! I think my 'season' of canning has come to an end. I made a large batch of peach jam last week, as well as 27 pints of applesauce. I got the apples for FREE and it was delicious!

So many people have fruit trees that they don't use, as was this case. In some larger cities, there are groups of  'gleaners' that collect from trees that people don't use to give to charities or soup kitchens. I wish there was something like this locally. So much food goes unused! All you need to do is look around as you drive this time of the year, to realize just how true this is! I'll be sure to take a picture of the ACRES of red peppers that are going to waste, just because the farmer 'met his quota' for the pepper harvest. I do not understand this! For insurance reasons, many farmers will not let people into their fields for gleaning. Really? When there are people who can't afford to buy food? We'll pick several bushes of these peppers and give them to a local soup kitchen-it's the right thing to do!!

I'll post the recipe if requested!