Veg Patch

To read the story of my Veg/Flower Patch in chronological order use the links in the Blog Archive

Sunday 15 September 2013

Its nice and hot here!

You may think that once again my weather obsession is going to be the main subject of this weeks blog. Well you would be wrong. In fact its one of my other's chillies!! 

Hopefully if you are a regular reader, you will have followed my plants from planting on the 1st of January this year to the current day. It became apparent in the middle of summer that I may have grown too many plants. The daily move from the greenhouse to the sunshine outside, was becoming a tad tedious. But I have stuck with it and I have been rewarded. The plants are covered in ripe fruits. 

The chilli trial plants have not been a roaring success. The only ones I was left with are the three chiletepin, which have grown beautifully. Ironic really as apparently they were going to be the hardest to grow. 


The peppers are tiny but having cut one open and had a taste the other day, I knew it was advisable not to pop  a whole on in for a snack. These little things certainly pack a punch, in fact an eye watering punch.If you didn't know, a chilli is rated for heat on something called the Scoville Scale. This particular one is rated at between 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville Units. There is an interesting chart on wikipedia that gives info about all chillies and where they sit on the scale. Have a look here Scoville Scale

Anyway, I picked all the ripe ones, but there are at least a hundred more still ripening. 


I have one plant that is a bit odd. The label I wrote and stuck in the pot says its a Habanero, but the chillis dont look like all the others so it must have been a random seed. Sadly although they look like they should be a nice hot fruit, they are very mild. 



Next was the Habanero. I bought these seeds in Florida and I must say they grew beautifully and look amazing, but they have no heat in them at all. In fact they taste more like a sweet pepper. I decided to dry them anyway, and use them in dinners over the winter which require red pepper. 



My haul so far was looking pretty good but it was time to pick some of the serious hitters.. 

First the rude chilli. I have one plant that again the fruits look different to the others of the same name, We have tried these and they are very very hot. 


I picked a good handful from this plant. The other two with the correct anatomy, have about another 100

And finally the mother of all chilli's,, The Dorset Naga. This has a scoville rating of over 1,000,000. I picked one last week and used 1 tiny slice in a meal, we were all coughing and had running eyes and noses for ages!! I thought it was wonderful but everyone else said I was torturing them!! 



Here is a basket of very hot peppers waiting to have something done to them. The tomatoes are for a sauce I was planning to make. 


Well that was all the ripe stuff picked, and was only a small fraction of the chillies on the bushes. What shall I do with it? Well I have been planning on making a hot sauce, which I love, and had been researching recipes. I think I had found the one that would suit me, so the Naga were destined for that. The not so hot peppers, I was going to keep to use over the winter, and the inbetweenies, I wanted to make chilli flakes with for cooking. To dry all these, I needed a new gadget, so it was off to Mr google for a search and a bit of research. I also consulted the oracle on preserving Carl Legge and came up with the best solution for me. 

A few days wait and the delivery man arrived with this


A dehydrator. And it appears you can dry and store all sorts of things. The chillies were prepared and then it was simply a matter of loading it up, setting the heat and waiting. 





Whilst these were drying I used the Naga to make this sauce. It was  rather potent. When I dropped them in the pan to cook, the smell caused the kitchen to be evacuated for a few minutes as it literally took my breath away!! The final product tastes amazing. I am going to be able to make gallons of the stuff with all those peppers. 


Of course, now I needed something to put it in, I have been saving bottles all summer, but only have one suitable at the moment for the sauce, it was quickly filled and I had more, so I decided to freeze some. I didn't want to have to defrost a huge amount at one time, so I used an ice cube tray to freeze small portions. 



After about 10 hours, the chillies in the dehydrator were nice and crispy. The mild ones were stored in old passata bottles. 


And the hot ones were ground into flakes




I have never been able to grow enough store to store before, so I had a wonderful day doing this. Today I am going to use it again to make other things for storage. 

Outside, the Rhubarb has continued to grow, The poor crowns need a rest, so I cut it all off and cooked it for freezing





I have sadly had a bit of a Brassica Massacre. I have protected my sprouts all summer from slugs and covered them in net to save them from butterflies. They have now got so big, the leaves are touching the net. I have seen loads of cabbage white butterflies hovering over them for days, and as I was walking past the bed the other day, I notice the crown of the plants had holes in


It seems the butterflies had managed to lay eggs on the leaves through the net and now I had these uninvited guests all over my sprouts. 



I had to abandon plans to go out, whip off the net and spend an hour caterpillar hunting. I rather enjoyed squishing the little nibblers.. I also tried to wipe all the eggs I could see off the leaves. I have checked every day and so far, no more caterpillars. 

Out and about this week we went to a wonderful seafood restaurant which is right on Chessil Beach in Dorset. It called The Crab House Cafe 


and I knew I was in for a treat when my cutlery arrived. 


Its not often you get a hammer as part of your place setting. 

As my lunch was placed in front of me , I realised the combination of white t shirt, hammer and crab in spicy Chinese sauce was not going to be a good one .


It was delicious and amazingly I managed to avoid any canteen medals!! 

Well thats all for this week, hope you all have a successful week preserving anything you have grown and getting the garden ready for the winter.





12 comments:

  1. I just love chillies in my food, it gives it such a wonderful kick. And recently I bought some Dartmoor Devil white chocolate with 4% naga (Bhut Jolokia) chilli which just takes your breath away. And I love the idea of dehydrating, storing it all for another day. You're so fortunate to be able to do all of this. That seafood dinner looks awesome, really good.

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  2. Wonderful! I have a similar amount of variety of chillies so there's some great ideas there as to what to do with them all!

    It's interesting to see that the chiletipins do ripen to red, my plant from the trials is absolutely loaded however they are all green/purple at the moment and I was wondering if they'd turn red. Guess I just need to be a little more patient!

    Do you have the recipe for your chilli sauce? I've been looking for a good one as the one I tried last year was somewhat of a disaster!

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    1. HI Andy, once purple its just a few more days to red so it wont be long . I made this one but halved the quantities because I didnt want to end up with a sauce I didnt like.Luckily its delicious

      http://thehotsauceaddiction.com/runny-dorset-naga-chilli-jam/

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  3. I noticed you left your seeds in your peppers too - you really are into masochism aren't you - there I've upped your hit ratings again!

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    1. Thanks Sue and i have been so careful since the last incident :)

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  4. Awesome post Lorraine many thanks for sharing with us all

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  5. I my son knows you can grow chillies he will be nagging me to grow them next year

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  6. I have never tried to grow chilis and I would not know what to do with so many of them but your process is a wonderful way of preserving them.

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  7. wow those are beautiful peppers, but the yummy crab Chinese style...well that one is a winner, thanks for sharing and linking up today

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  8. You tell your story in an entertaining way! Am a little envious at your garden, but then I have things others may envy me for:)

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  9. Thanks for the link Lorraine, Loved reading this. Your photos are brilliant and the detail as per your previous blogs is great and for people like me, it gives great ideas. I'm hoping to make sauces for the first time this year, and I never once though of putting them into ice cube trays so you can use a bit at a time. Me mam does the same with garlic and onions grown in the garden so when we cook, she can just throw a little cube in. Thanks again and really pleased you got a good harvest :)

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  10. Brilliant post! And about my favourite subject too... Like you, I have struggled to find chillis that have a decent amount of heat without being the "Blow your head off" type. All too often they are bland and tasteless too. I think many chilli seeds are sold for the looks rather than for the taste.

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