new things Archives ⋆ The Dining Traveler https://diningtraveler.com/category/new-things Travel Tips, Recipes, and Culinary Travel Website Fri, 03 Apr 2015 19:33:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://i0.wp.com/diningtraveler.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/cropped-DiningTraveler_IG1-e1581697224126.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 new things Archives ⋆ The Dining Traveler https://diningtraveler.com/category/new-things 32 32 88259031 Adventures in Gardening: Preserving https://diningtraveler.com/2013/10/gardeningpreserving.html Mon, 07 Oct 2013 02:40:00 +0000 http://www.diningtraveler.com/2013/10/adventures-in-gardening-preserving.html From El Huerto I have already dedicated two posts this year to my adventures in gardening. This summer, I fell in love with what I like to call my “huerto” (Spanish for Garden).  It always makes me happy to track the report of my plants when I wake up in the morning. I find myself talking […]

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From El Huerto
I have already dedicated two posts this year to my adventures in gardening. This summer, I fell in love with what I like to call my “huerto” (Spanish for Garden).  It always makes me happy to track the report of my plants when I wake up in the morning. I find myself talking to the plants them as I water them and feeling sad when they are abused by the DC sun. Among my babies, there is small jalapeño plant I bought in June at the Home Depot at Rhode Island Ave which gave me plenty of little green and red peppers. With all too many of them, I decided to try my hand at preserving.

I found beautiful Ball quilted jars at Wegmans which I intended to use for entertaining.  I thought it would be nice to use them for their actual purpose.  I found a recipe at the Ball website for the jelly. It was pretty simple and omitted the green food coloring.  I like my food to look natural.  I picked the jalapenos from the plant and proceeded to cut them in my kitchen when I made a BIG mistake: I rubbed my eye with my bare hands!!! Thanks to the internet, I found a great solution to the problem: I made an eye wash with a shot glass and milk.  It really calmed the inflammation. Note to self: wear gloves as the instructions state!

Pretty Ball Jars

The last step, processing the canned contents in boiling water

I did not have all the canning equipment of the pros but I managed to follow the instructions and effectively sterilize the jars in my Le Creuset without getting burned.  Once the content was set on the jars, I placed them in the kitchen until fully cooled.  A few hours later, I started hearing popping sounds, indicating the jars sealed.  The proof came the next day, when I got to try my jelly.  I was very proud of myself!  It had the right balance of sweet and spicy.  I later served it at a party with homemade cornbread bites and gave extra jars as gifts.  Overall, I thought the process was going to be more complicated than I thought, happy that it turned out well.  Looking forward to doing more preserving, especially with the fall and winter fruits.

Ready to be served!
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