Satan's freezer

Since I'm going out of town, I figured I'd deal with the refrigerator drawer full of peppers.  It started innocently enough, with a gallon ziploc full of grilled bell peppers and onions going into the freezer. 

But then there were the jalapenos, and the last few evil Padron peppers to deal with:

Originally, I was going to put the cayennes in with the jalapenos, but when I was finished chopping them my fingers were tingling. Definitely need to stay segregated.  I'll make them into hot sauce when I get back, but for now, into the freezer of pain.

Lastly, I roasted the banana peppers (don't let the innocuous name fool you, these are evil banana peppers) and the poblanos, about half a dozen each, and froze those too.

Weeks 16 and 17

Week 16:
Tomatoes
Eggplant
Red potatoes
Melon
Peppers

Week 17:
Melon
Peppers
Tomatoes
Basil
Green onions



These two weeks have been dominated by hot peppers.  I roasted some of the banana peppers last weekend to make a potato soup I saw a while back on Mexico: One Plate at a Time (recipe).  I made a perfectly mediocre salsa with some tomatoes and jalapenos.  And then I went for the Padrons.  These little peppers came with instructions.  Traditionally, they are sauteed in olive oil with a little salt, perhaps stuffed with cheese.

"Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non" (Galician for "Padrón peppers, some are hot and some are not") - Wikipedia

They ain't lying.  The description said that the bigger they are, the hotter, so I started out muching on a little one.  It was sweet and tasty, so I moved on to a bigger one.  The first bite tasted spicy immediately, and only got hotter in my mouth.  Fast forward a minute and I was swigging half-and-half, stuffing my mouth with crackers, my ears ringing.

I'll be down in Louisiana visiting family later this week, so no box.  Instead I'll be sweating in the August heat, enjoying some of the more land-based delights the area has to offer.  Fishing has resumed, and shrimp season is opening this week, but what's available is expensive and hard to come by.  So I'm planning on enjoying some Italian, a nice steak, and Doberge cake in honor of my December graduation.

P.S.  Check out this elephant man tomato:

Week 15

Corn
Peppers
Basil
Melon

I have been opinionated about food since a young age.  At some point before I can remember I decided that the dish composed of canned green beans tossed with Italian salad dressing should be known as "terrible recipe"  Some of you may agree that this is indeed a terrible recipe.  Others may wonder why that particular name was reserved for this innocuous side dish instead of this abomination that I was also served regularly.  Anyway, the name stuck in our family, even though I remember liking terrible recipe enough to eat it by the bowlful.

In honor of terrible recipe, here's a non-terrible recipe for corn salad.  It's almost just as easy as pouring Kraft Italian over green beans, but way better.

6 ears corn
1 small onion, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
1 banana pepper, diced
juice of 1 lime
handful of cilantro, and one of basil
pinch of salt

Remove kernels from the corn.  The trick comes from Rachael Ray (don't hate) - put a small bowl upside down in a big bowl, stand the corn on the small bowl, slide the knife down the cob, and voila, the kernels fall into the big bowl.  Toss the corn with the onion, peppers, herbs, salt, and squeeze the lime over.

Like I said, not much of a recipe, but it's versatile.  I've eaten it this week as a garnish for curry chicken, mixed with grape tomatoes as a salsa with corn chips, and piled over half avocados for a salad.