So, it’s definitely apparent that our garden is predominantly made of peppers. We have far more peppers than anything else. We started the garden in mid-May with six different types: red chili, cayenne, banana, Hungarian hot yellow, habeñero, and jalapeño.

We had 3 extra pots waiting to be filled once we settled in our new place; so before it got too late in the season we went to Adams and Son’s garden shop again to see what we could add. It was June 25th 2010. I picked out 3 types of peppers, 4 sprouts of each which means 12 more pepper sprouts – and I have to mention it cost me under $3.50! Are you kidding me? What a steal, I simply could not resist. This time I chose three very different varieties from what we already had (also from each other) – chocolate beauty, pepperoncini, and manzano orange chilies. This make 9!

I was happy to find pepperoncinies because I have never seen them at a garden shop before. I love eating them pickled but I can’t recall a time that I have ever eaten them fresh or even seen them available fresh in the market. The pepperoncini sprouts were already pretty tall, they came with a few peppers already formed and lots of flowers.

In just one week, the pepperoncini plants near doubled in size and continued to produce many more peppers. We still have not picked any but I’m thinking we should some time soon. Not sure what to do with them yet. I know they’ll be good in salad, so I think I’ll try eating them fresh first and then take it from there. If we can get enough peppers towards the end of the season I would love to try pickling them.

The Chocolate Beauty peppers are supposed to turn into a deep chocolaty purpleish. Yes! That will be great, I hope they’ll grow to be fairly large. We don’t have any other pepper with that coloring or that have the bell pepper shape. When we first got the sprouts there were 2 tall and two short. No peppers but lots of flowers. This plant flowers in clusters, little bunches.

Within a week we began to see the peppers form and a week after that they were about an inch fat! And now they’re obviously even bigger. Can’t wait to see the color seep in.

The manzano orange chili pepper plant looks a bit different than the rest of our peppers. The leaves are large, furry & textured; the flowers are a beautiful purple. The pepper will be an apple-like shape and even more exciting… the seeds will be black! Very cool, I don’t think I have never eaten or even seen one of these – this is why I wanted to grow them. There’s something exciting about growing and caring for something you have no particular expectations for. There were red and yellow manzano peppers available as well but I though orange would look nice among the rest of the peppers.

Big news for the Hungarian hot yellow peppers! They’re huge! They’ve been growing like mad.  Take a look at what they’ve been up to…

We’ve already harvested our first batch. Pictured below are four Hungarian hot yellow peppers and two sweet banana peppers. You can see how similar they look – the banana peppers are the two resting on top, the only difference in appearance is that they’re slightly more slender and have a little more point in the tip. Looks aside, these peppers do not taste the same! Holy oh my the Hungarian hot peppers are way spicy! Delicious and even better when spliced with sweet banana peppers (helps ease the spice). We made a pita pizza with sauteed garden pickings the other night. Hope to share it with you sometime.

The Banana Peppers are growing just as well as the Hungarian hots. Apparently they are related – not so surprising based on the looks. Banana peppers are sweet and Hungarian hot peppers are uh… hot. Spicy. I’m happy to be growing both because I love the spice but the sweeter peppers are a perfect compliment to offset the heat. Lots of banana peppers still ready for picking as well…

Our habenero peppers have been looking pretty sad this season. But things are looking up for the little guys, although we have yet to spot any peppers or even any flowers. The habenero pot is finally perking up and showing much improvement. It actually looks healthy now!

Cayenne Peppers were early to show up and have not stopped producing since the last update. We’ve had some great shapes come from these little babies. Little curls and witch fingers. I can’t wait until they turn red! I’m already getting impatient ;) What can we do with all of these? A powder… maybe a cayenne paste?

The jalapenos… I barely even want to talk about them. Ever since the move and well, quite frankly even before the move, the jalapeños just haven’t been doing great. They’re not dead and not even dying but they’re not doing their best. At the old place something was munching on their leaves and once moved to the new place the sun kind of burnt them up a bit… worse than any of the other peppers and I don’t know why they were singled out by the bugs. Tasty leaves I suppose.

The good news is that they are not doing worse at this point, in fact I have spotted a few little flowers which means they are really trying to be their best and I expect them to make it big after all. One little jalapeno has made his first appearance. By the next time I share the progress I hope we will all see a whole bunch of little jalepeños.

Last but not least – the red chili peppers. No problems here, they’re growing quite tall and I see lots of little peppers hanging. I can’t wait to harvest them, we seriously had an abundance last year and I think it’s not less than every day that I think about making that damn chili sauce ;)

Oh peppers… I love you!

I’ll leave you with a few non-pepper images of some beautiful found in the yard…

Until next time….

Our garden has officially moved! And so did we, of course. I guess I can blame all of the busyness and work of moving for my slow-to-post attention to this site as of late. But now we and all of our plants are settling into our new space and getting ready to share again.  But first let’s touch base with last couple of weeks of the garden’s progress, a lot has happened since the first update.

Throughout the month of June, Chicago was hit with pretty much constant rain, so much that I barely even needed to water anything.

Above you can see the peppers are coming along well, definitely a lot of growth and flowers in the past few weeks. But no Peppers before the move.

The greens have grown so much they have at least quadrupled in size from the time they were planted. They are definitely ready for eating at this time on June 14th.

Over the first couple of weeks in June our cilantro plant bolted in to flowers. We’re new to growing cilantro but generally you don’t want your herbs to flower because all of the energy goes to the flowers and slows the growth for the rest of the plant – also many herbs get bitter once they flower. I think it’s best to use the herbs and prune them regularly in order to promote new growth, keep them happy, and get the most of them.

Cilantro is considered a short-lived plant. It’s recommended to plant new seeds every few weeks in order to keep up with the demand. At this point we just didn’t have the time to eat the cilantro before it went to seed, and it’s lucky for us because now we get to see how coriander seeds are made! Here’s an image of the flowers a couple of weeks back.

Joe and I have been moving our belongings over to the new spot slowly over the past few weeks, including all of the house plants. So in the end we basically just had our big furniture and our garden left to haul over….

It was pretty cute to see all of our largest plants in the back of a U-Haul! We sent some smaller ones along with them too. Since we only moved a few blocks away the trip wasn’t too stressful for them. Now they lay in a very sunny yard full of life. Here is a peak at some of the plants already growing in the yard…

We’re still figuring out the set up of the new garden. We kept all of the peppers together outside in full sun and the mint, greens and strawberries pushed off to the side in another section – they still get a lot of sun as well. Behind the wooden planters is a patch of mint and strawberries already established. Definitely no shortage of mint in this yard! The strawberry patch was loaded with fruit at the beginning of the month. Our little potted strawberry plant is hopefully just a late bloomer – we still haven’t seen any flowers yet.

The light in the yard is definitely full sun which is much different than our previous garden spot that had only morning and evening sun. So, with the excessive amount of rain paired with a much brighter setting, the outdoor garden has a little adjusting to do. Some of our peppers have burnt leaves.

With a few really heavy storms many of the pepper flowers have been blown off and most of the pepper plants have been up rooted by being blown over a couple of times. When we loose those cute little flowers we loose the chance of it becoming a pepper. A little heartbreaking but there is nothing I can do about it except cover up the roots and help the plants stand tall so they can continue to grow. Even though they have had some weather related struggles they are still doing really well; we may have lost a few buds and a few little branches but that doesn’t mean we’ll be short of peppers. In fact we’re already seeing peppers on half of our varieties.

The cayenne peppers are the most plentiful so far with a minimum of 10 peppers already forming! They are so long and skinny all they way from the beginning of their growth. This is the first time I have ever grown cayenne peppers. I use cayenne powder all the time but it’s not often that I get to eat fresh cayenne peppers. I’m looking forward to it.

The Hungarian hot yellow peppers are up next with several peppers already forming, quite large considering how young they are. When they are under an inch long they are a nice fresh green and once they pass an inch they seem to become a lighter color…. must be heading towards yellow! I wonder how they taste?

Next is the red chilies with a few little babies. I know we’ll end up with a ton of them and I can’t wait to make more of our Chili Garlic Sauce again! We’re just finishing up our last jar now – absolutely delicious, a perfect amount of spice with a hint of sweetness. This makes me particularly eager for these peppers to grow!

The Jalapenos are flowering but have yet to show any peppers, the habeneros are not showing much progress at all. I think they have been very much over watered with all of the rain this month.  I still have hope for them though, we had a lot of luck with them last year and I don’t see why they wouldn’t come around this time.

The banana peppers are on their way. We’re seeing a lot of flowers now as well as new growth. In the first image you can see where a few little branches were torn off in the storm. Never grew these before either, excited to see how big they’ll grow.

Now that we have a sun porch we decided to take full advantage of it and keep our herb garden indoors. It’s right outside of the kitchen so it’ll be supper easy to access while cooking. Also I think it’ll be easier to keep an eye on them and make sure they’re being used quickly enough.

This is the beginning of out indoor garden, we have a lot of house plants out there right now soaking up sun with the herbs. Our last apartment had very little sunlight and as a result most of the plants were not doing their best. So this is a much needed retreat for them. The tree in the corner is a grapefruit tree. My Dad planted it from a seed years ago for my brother and it was passed down to me last year. Over the winter it wasn’t doing well at all and I thought it was done for. But once I brought it outside in the spring it perked back up with tons of new growth, and now it’s living very happily on the porch.

Below is a quick peak at our herbs. Starting from the top – lady lavender, dill, munstead lavender, sage, oregano, French thyme, rosemary, orange thyme, and basil. All doing really well, we have already started using them too!

Let’s not forget about our cilantro, or shall I say coriander? We missed our chance to eat our cilantro, so now we’re moving on to coriander seeds. I have always known that coriander seeds are cilantro seeds, but I never knew exactly how it happened. It all makes sense now.

More to come soon!

The beginning of May was rather cold here in Chicago. I anxiously waited for it to warm up so I could get my potted garden started. I worried that I would be getting a late start but actually began the first installation of plants one day ahead of last year. May 16th 2010.

This year will be a different though. The potted garden will have an eventful summer as it will be moving locations with in a month of its inception. Luckily Joe and I were able to find a lovely new home with a fantastic yard! I’m so excited for it, the yard will have plenty of space for our pots as well as the opportunity to expand (in real ground) next year! More on the new spot later.

One of our absolute favorite garden shops in our neighborhood (or in the world) is Adams & Sons. There you can find a huge selection of vegetables, herbs, house plants, and pretty much anything else related that you would need for an extremely reasonable price – this place is awesome! The people are friendly and helpful, plus they usually have a super sweet shop cat walking the grounds – what a dream life! Anyway, this is where we scored a lot of our pots in the past as well as most of our sprouts for this year’s garden. Make time to head over there sometime if you’re planning a garden of your own.

We didn’t really need to invest in anymore pots this year but it’s always a good idea to freshen up your soil. This year we bought a basic potting soil and mixed it up with an organic mushroom compost which is supposed to be an optimal addition for growing vegetables. We bought a lot of the same vegetables & herbs as last year but also switched it up a bit and added some new things.

For peppers, we’re growing cayenne, habeñero, Hungarian hot, jalapeño, red chili, and banana peppers. This year we planted cayenne, banana, and jalapeños in the large ceramic pot. Last year it was red chilies and jalapeños which surprisingly, when grown mixed up in the same pot, were very hard to tell apart at times. We’re hoping that we won’t have the same problem this year with choosing a variety with each a different shape and color. We’re expecting another great pepper harvest!

For greens, we’re trying out baby spinach and Swiss chard to start. We definitely want to do kale again but we’re having a hard time finding it so far this year. We checked 4 different garden shops and even went back only to find the kale had come in and sold out right away! Blast. We’ll just keep looking for now – we have held it’s place in one of our wooden crate planters, although the other greens are beginning to take over! It’s possible that we may even be able to plant some in the ground at the new space.

Herbs include orange thyme, french thyme, oregano, sage, cilantro, & munstead lavender. From another nursery, and planted a week after, we have dill, rosemary, & lady lavender.  Having your own herb garden is so great because it makes it easy to spice up your dish with fresh flavor at any time. Plus, it saves you a lot of money because you only chop off what you need or you’ll just use what is ready to eat – a lot of times when we buy packaged fresh herbs we won’t be able to use them all in time or we get tired of the flavor by the time it’s all gone. I’m hoping to keep this part of the garden growing throughout the year.

Orange thyme, oregano, & French thyme. Thyme is delicious and it’s fun to grow different varieties at the same time so you can really taste how different they are. I’m looking forward to figuring out new ways to use them. Oregano is also delicious but it’s not an herb I’m really use to cooking with – I thought if we grew it ourselves it would be a great way to get acquainted with it.

Sage. Last year we grew sage as well and made this bread.

Lady lavender, rosemary, & dill. Rosemary is one that we will definitely get a lot of use out of, seems like one of the more hardy herbs that we grow. Dill on the other hand seems rather delicate, this is the first time I’ve tried to grow it.

Mint. This mint is from last year, it came back strong starting back in March! It basically claimed this entire pot and I don’t think it has any plans to give up any space. There were a few varieties in there last year but the peppermint ruled and took over. Luckily Joe and I make a mean mojito and we seem to require lots of mint in the summer months.

Cilantro, basil, & munstead lavender. Basil is an obvious choice, deliciously compliments so many dishes, I love it. I’m thinking we might have to expand our basil garden once we move so we can make pesto and more. Cilantro is another herb we use a lot of, we wanted to include it in our garden to see how it grows. I don’t expect to get too much out if it but any amount is fine – I just hope we can keep it alive through the summer. It seems to grow taller and taller but never wider. Luckily it’s the least expensive herb to buy so we won’t have trouble keeping up with our consumption.

Of course we couldn’t forget about strawberries! We’re hoping to actually eat the few berries we grow this year! We plan to bring it inside right before the fruit is ready to avoid donating the first bite to urban nature. This year we planted them in a strawberry pot gifted from Joe’s mom! Thanks! The plant seems very happy.

As a side note, Joe and I began our move over the weekend and gave the new yard some love and water, we found a covered up strawberry patch which had many hidden fruits – of course we ate what was ready, hopefully it will perk up and keep bearing, it looks promising. It was perhaps a little too exciting to discover – some sort of treasure. I just think strawberries are beautiful, that’s why I enjoy growing them so much.

So happy it’s garden time again! The next time you hear about this one it will be on it’s way to a new home.

Ever since last time we made pepper powder, which was also the first time we made a pepper powder, I’ve been making all sorts of plans in my mind for the next homemade spices. Jalapeño powder was in the plan this time around. Over the weekend we went to Pete’s Fresh Market (one of my favorite grocery stores in Chicago) and stocked up on just about everything, including 3 pounds of jalapeños which cost just under $3.00! And after splurging for these little spicy peppers it only took an entire morning, afternoon, and evening to oven dry them out. Totally worth it!

Ingredients used : Jalapeño peppers (3 pounds).

I’m not gonna lie, slowly dry roasting peppers until they are totally dried out takes a bit of time. You’ll need be ready to set your oven to the lowest setting all day. Mine goes just under 200° – at such a low temperature the peppers are warm enough to dry out without burning. Even though this process takes all day it doesn’t require much of your attention. Nothing is happening fast which means you can attend to the peppers pretty much anytime you feel like it. Towards the end it will require more frequent check ups.

Before starting you may consider getting your hands on some rubber gloves. You will be handling the peppers a lot. Especially while cutting the fresh peppers, you’ll wish it wasn’t your bare hands doing the work.  Of course I did NOT wear gloves throughout the process and my hands were very spice-tainted for a couple of days – it wasn’t too bad, I just had to be careful about touching my eyes and petting the cats etc. Spicy pepper oil doesn’t exactly wash off right away and it can be uncomfortable to deal with. Don’t be surprised if you don’t take extra precautions.

Jalapeño powder can be made with any amount of jalapeños. I used 3 pounds which was about 35 decent sized peppers. Because there were so many it required 2 baking sheets at the beginning (until they shriveled up and could fit on one tray towards the middle of the roast). We happen to have 2 ovens, but you could also use different racks within the same oven if you want to roast a lot at once. 3 pounds ground up to be a little over a cup of jalapeño powder.

The last time I made a pepper powder I roasted all of the peppers whole, jalapeños included. We used a variety of peppers in that batch from an overstock of our garden. The jalapeños were the thickest and therefore took the longest time to dry out. This time, since I was doing all jalapeños, I decided to cut them into smaller pieces in order to help them dry out faster. I quartered half of them on one baking sheet and cut the rest into halves on the other sheet – I did this partially because by the time I got half way through cutting the 35 peppers in quarters I wanted to handle them less and also I was curious how big of a difference it would make in the drying process. Obviously the quarters dried out quicker. Half way through the roast I ended up cutting the halves in half again. The smaller the pieces the quicker they will roast.  Next time I might try slicing them in rings – I didn’t do that this time because I had so many to roast and not enough room in the oven.

Cut all of the peppers and place them open face up on the baking sheet. Do not use any oil, this is a dry roast. I used parchment paper underneath but you can place them directly on the sheet as well. If you are not wearing gloves be aware of what your hands are touching for the rest of the day. If you touch your face or eyes you will have a stinging reminder that will linger for some time and you will be be more aware going forward. However, if you have affectionate pets or kitties like I do, be sure to avoid petting them too much – they will probably not be able to communicate to you that their face feels like it’s on fire! No good.

Place the sheets in the oven and periodically check on them and flip. Since the oven was at such a low temperature I just used my hands to rotate the peppers. It was easiest for me, but you can also use small tongs or a utensil to help. The drying process will start off slow and speed up as time goes by. It’s important to flip them so all sides of the pepper have a chance to dry out.

About half way through the roast, the peppers lost enough moisture to shrink down and be able to fit on one pan.  The baking sheet with the peppers only cut in half were not as dried out as the sheet with the quartered pieces (big surprise). Eventually I just cut them in quarter size as well to help speed up the process. As they were drying I noticed in some of the peppers at the points where seeds were attached to the meat there was more moisture than other parts, so I loosened or detached the seeds in order to allow the subtle heat to reach those areas.

Toward the end of the slow roast pick out the fully dried peppers to avoid burning. They will dry at different rates although the seeds seemed to dry out before anything else. It’s apparent they are finished when the pepper skin has shriveled up and darkened in color.  It should not be able to bend without cracking. As I picked out the dry ones out I placed them in a holding bowl before grinding them all at once.

Once all of the peppers are removed from the oven it’s time to grind them up and make them into a fresh jalapeño spice. We used our Magic Bullet for grinding. You can use a spice grinder of course or a coffee grinder that is thoroughly cleaned out before and after grinding. But perhaps jalapeño accented coffee would be delicious. Grinding instructions are simple, place them in and grind them up until desired texture. We like a coarse pepper powder because it’s perfect to sprinkle on any dish. So far we have spiced up soup, popcorn, chickpeas, and bread.

This recipe is not so new, basically a repeat post, but I had to share it again with only  slight change from the first Jalapeño Bread. Really there are only two differences from this time to the last. First is the cheese; this time we used swiss instead of cheddar. And second is that this time we were able to use a stand mixer which totally made a difference in effort ;) So so so much easier! Barely any effort at all when you don’t have to put your back into it.  Regardless, the bread was delicious as expected… hopefully you’ll catch a glimpse of inspiration to make your own.

This bread recipe is adapted from one of our favorite bread recipes:
Jalapeño Cheddar Bread

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon active dry yeast (less than a ¼-ounce package)
1 ¾ cups plus 1 tablespoon warm water (105-115°F)
4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
1 ½ teaspoons salt
¼ cup olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped fresh jalapeño, including seeds and ribs, plus 2 tablespoons
chopped fresh jalapeño, without seeds and ribs (from 3 medium total)
5 ounces coarsely grated swiss cheese (1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1 ½ ounces finely grated parmesan (¾ cup)
1 large egg, beaten with a pinch of salt

* Special equipment: a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment (we used the bread hook attachment – we’re new to the whole stand mixer set up)

Prepare jalapeños, shred and measure out cheeses.

Combine yeast and 1 tablespoon of warm water in a small bowl. Allow it to stand and work for about 5 minutes.

Add flour, salt, oil, yeast, and the other 1 ¾ cup warm water in your mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until a soft dough forms and increase speed to medium high for another 3 minutes.

Add jalapeños, 1½ cups of shredded swiss cheese, and ½ cup grated parmesan. Mix until well incorporated. This is the part where your arms thank you for having a stand mixer! A good old wooden spoon and metal bowl works too.

Scrape dough down to the center to form somewhat of a ball (I broke my spatula here! and now we have half a spatula that we still use;). Lightly sprinkle with flour and cover with a clean linen towel to help it stay moist. Set bowl in a warm and draft-free area and allow to rise for about 2-2½ hours or until doubled in size.

Turn the sticky dough out onto a well-floured surface. With floured hands form into a rectangle about 8 x 11 inches. Fold in thirds like a letter, pressing along the seam of each fold to seal.

Butter a 9×5 loaf pan. Place dough in in seam side down. Cover with same kitchen towel and let it rise again until dough rises above the pan, 1-1¼ hours.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 400°F.

Brush loaf with egg and sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of swiss and ¼ cup parmesan down center of loaf.

Bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until golden. Loosen loaf from the pan with a butter knife if necessary and remove it from the pan. The original recipe suggests to return the loaf to the oven for an additional 10 minutes with out the pan to crisp up the crust. I’ve done it with and with out that step and liked it either way. If you are unsure if it is cooked enough, this step will reassure you.

Place on a cooling rack and allow it to sit for about 1-1½ hours. This might be that hardest past of the whole process – it smells so good, you’ll want to dig in immediately!