sweetsourSPICY

(hot pepper jelly, oh man, FEEL the burn!)

This is turning out to be a HUGE harvest.  You hear on the radio "best growing season in DECADES" except, of course, for me and my black thumb and my tomatoes, but at least my sunflowers are wonderful.
ANYWAY, I am talking to Trevor across the street.  They have an old farmhouse, like we do, except their old farmhouse has an enormous apple tree. You will recall that 2 years ago I was over there EVERY day gathering apples and making jam, sauce, pie...its like that again.  And it began yesterday.  They do nothing to this tree and it thrives.  You eat the apples right off it, and I picked a dozen or 2 and made apple sauce with blueberries OH GOSH so pretty and tasty!****

In other news, I was down at Indian Creek, my favorite farm.  I got donut peaches!  Cute little finger eggplants!  And a selection of pretty bell peppers and hot peppers....we made something I have only tasted a few times before in my life: we made HOT PEPPER JELLY.

Whereas when you make apple sauce the house smells lovely and spicy, when you make hot pepper jelly?  It smells like the inside of an INFERNO.  Your nose burns!  Yet it is sweet...and sour...hot pepper jelly is 3 things:  vinegar, peppers and sugar, and we tasted it and....!!! Lovely :)



****stovetop apple sauce (I made a double batch)

7-9 apples diced into a cookpot
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
spoonful lemon or lime juice
spice like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc

Dump all that in the cook pot and boil and simmer 20-30 minutes covered and stirring frequently until apples are super soft.  (I added a cup of blueberries near the end--I usually add berries of some kind!)
When apples are so soft they are dissolving, you are done.  Either use a potato masher for chunky apple sauce and mash and mix OR use your blender for totally smooth apple sauce. Cool and keep in the fridge.