All those peppers!

We have had an abundant amount of hot peppers this season, and we are starting to pick some really nice big & blocky sweet bell peppers of all colors.  We eat the bell peppers fresh in salads and sticks, throw them in anything with pasta, grill them, put them in eggs, quesidilla's, barbecue and fajitas.

I love to make stuffed peppers.  There are so many recipes out there for stuffed peppers, I guess because they are hard to mess up.   I mix cooked rice, ground meat, tomato sauce, a little chopped onion, tomato and peppers and then melt in a little cream cheese and mix in cheddar cheese (or whatever I have) and maybe even some fresh minced sage.  Top them with more cheese and bake them in the oven.  The peppers are wonderful roasted.  I think it is important to have a nice thick filling, if you use too many fresh tomatoes in the stuffing, they will be loose and watery.  Sometimes, you have to drain off the liquid as the peppers bake, otherwise they are more like boiled not roasted.

Any leftover peppers I have, I slice and throw in the freezer.  I just keep adding to the container, they are so great to have in the winter!

I had a couple members making green pepper jelly.  I will add this recipe, I have not tried it yet.  A couple years ago I made a roasted red pepper jelly, it was wonderful.  When we lived in the south, hot pepper jelly was popular, dyed bright red and slathered over cream cheese and a club cracker.  It was pretty good.
 http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pepper-jelly/detail.aspx

On to the farm news and happenings:
The summer heat has caught up to my poor tomatoes and herbs. Many of the tomatoes cooked on the vine in the dry sunshine.  I have some of them covered with cloth and I think it is helping.           
Many of the fall crops are started in the ground.  Yesterday I put our 4 flats of mini napa cabbage called "orangette."  Napa cabbage is one of my favorites, I am looking forward to napa salad. 
The greenhouse is full of starts of kale, cabbage, collards, green onions, lettuce and more herbs.
In the ground is more radishes, lettuce, bok choi, spinach, mustard greens and swiss chard. 
I am starting to pick and cure the winter squash.  So far I have picked a few pumpkins, spaghetti squash, delicata and sweet dumpling (dry sweet flesh).  My poor acorn squash vines died all at once, virus or borer, still not sure. 
We are in the process of putting up one of 2 hoop houses.  It is 20 x 48 and is quite a job to erect.  We should have it up in another week.  Inside we will grow spinach, greens and green onions this fall.  The idea is to extend the season, and we should be able to harvest greens and spinach throughout the winter months.  In the spring, I will start early tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant.  Planted in mid-March, they will be several weeks earlier than if the ground outside.  We are very excited!
The shares are on the smaller size right not, but soon we will have bulky greens again!
Thanks to all of you for your support, we could not do this without you!!!

Week 10!

We are half way through the season this week.  The hot dry weather ended the green beans, that turned tough and hollow, which was a shame because I got one not so good picking on the late beans.  The heat brought on the peppers and tomatoes.  The next crop of summer squash is just now blossoming.  Started in the greenhouse is the fall crop of lettuce, napa cabbage, Gonzales cabbage, and Beria cabbage, a loose leaf cabbage kind of like collards only thicker.  I will seed more lettuce, Swiss chard and various greens and radishes in the ground soon and hope the crab grass slows. We are ready to put up our 20 x 50 hoop house and our new 20 x 50 greenhouse.  The hoop house we will sow spinach and lettuce and plant green onions in this fall.  It will be our trial year for winter production (I am pretty excited!)

This weeks share includes:
Variety of Tomatoes, Cherokee purple, brandywine, yellow brandywine, Valencia, red zebra and Illini star.
peppers, variety of sweet, green, Italian sweet long, banana, paprika (frying pepper)
hot peppers, jalapenos, cayenne, Hungarian hot wax
Potatoes
carrots
Onions
garlic
let me know what herbs you would like!