(no subject)
Quiet weekend in the local area. Sunday afternoon with cousin Jenny and her family, post Susan G Koman “Race for the Cure.” It is Jenny’s family tradition they started in support of their mom who was a cancer survivor for over a decade. Now Aunt Marilyn is gone, and kids are growing, and the tradition is waning. But many happy memories remain of post “race” picnics -- tall tales by departed aunts & uncles, watermelon seed spitting contests, at least one off-agenda belching contest the year of maximum boys age 8 - 11. It is voluntary pot luck, Joyce brought a pear tart she makes late summer. It must say, the pear tart was a gorgeous presentation and awfully good with all the other picnic foods. My wife is a dessert genius (in case she’s reading this or even if not). Jacob -- Jenny and Dusty’s youngest child and my second cousin -- is a senior this year. He arrived late from planning a church mission trip to China, somewhere on the mainland. They will go on a financial shoestring and obviously will not be in the tourist bubble. Go dude!
Saturday a local “garlic festival” with tomato samples. Persimmon is an orange tomato that would work as sauce, deep tomato flavor. Our cold wet spring was not conducive to robustly delicous tomatoes this year. No precip the past 6 weeks but we still are 4.5” above average annual.
Harvesting chili peppers now with intent to dry. From my scholarly labors regarding pasilla bajio, there is ample confusion. “Pasilla” is a common misnomer for poblanos. In Mexico the true pasilla (“little black raisin”) is known as chilaca when fresh and green otherwise as pasilla negro chile negro chile pasilla and/or chile pasilla de Mexico for added precision and nuance, sans bajio. Paging bajio, paging bajio. The authoritative chili websites assign Scoville (pain/heat) ratings between 350 - 30,000 for pasilla bajio, and garden blogs attest to complete range of heat and flavor, though curiously every blog states a specific heat or specific flavor as if that’s the reliable value. So there you have it, don’t believe anybody, it’s a wildcard and it might be a hotspur or a poblano unless you know its mama!
Harvested a couple about 8” length bronzy dark green for cooking. Walls are very thin, would not roast well. Cautious taste - barely detectable heat, mild flavor. Chopped and cooked up in a fritatta with green bell pepper and zucchini and the chili flavor came on true and bold. Wonderful fritatta.
What the blogs have in common. Cooking-- or drying then briefly cooking -- intensifies the flavor, the darker more mature pasillas bajio (mahogony or even black) are more intense but some say are bitter. From experience cooked green ones are very good (this year anyway). So the drying agenda is: group pasilla bajio roughly by chilacaness running the gamut to negroness, ignoring possible pasillaness and/or chiliness variances, and definitely losing the bajioness accepting no poblano. Dry in groups, keep ziplocked in a cool place and look for chili recipes.
We have sweet banana pepper this year too, a yellow that I harvested not, some are now bright red like wax devil horns. Tossed those rojos and some more pasilla bajios into a pork potroast with some garlic and white wine and chicken stock. We’ll see pretty soon if we have oinko diablo or just good roast.
Made roast beef last week with onions garlic and a cup of cabernet that cooked down no braise. Threw in about a quart of overripe Blue Lake green beans thicker than your little finger and darn they were good roasted with all that onion & potato carmelization. Note: green beans go in about 40 minutes before you are done roasting, along with the little potatoes.
Fond distant memories of Molly a long lost housemate from college where I shared a kind of Grateful Dead clubhouse with about 6 other so-called students. We rotated cooking which generally was pretty low quality output. For some reason I liked to cook even back then. But I was also pretty green and studious for the soc/psych/art residents lifestyle and Moll who was otherwise spoken for older and much more sophisticated loved to tease me mercilessly at dinner if people showed up on time which they usually did when I cooked. “Parks! Another Taste Orgasm!” as I blushed profusely giggled and squirmed and avoided eye contact for the remainder of the meal. Dear ol Moll: God Bless.
Saturday a local “garlic festival” with tomato samples. Persimmon is an orange tomato that would work as sauce, deep tomato flavor. Our cold wet spring was not conducive to robustly delicous tomatoes this year. No precip the past 6 weeks but we still are 4.5” above average annual.
Harvesting chili peppers now with intent to dry. From my scholarly labors regarding pasilla bajio, there is ample confusion. “Pasilla” is a common misnomer for poblanos. In Mexico the true pasilla (“little black raisin”) is known as chilaca when fresh and green otherwise as pasilla negro chile negro chile pasilla and/or chile pasilla de Mexico for added precision and nuance, sans bajio. Paging bajio, paging bajio. The authoritative chili websites assign Scoville (pain/heat) ratings between 350 - 30,000 for pasilla bajio, and garden blogs attest to complete range of heat and flavor, though curiously every blog states a specific heat or specific flavor as if that’s the reliable value. So there you have it, don’t believe anybody, it’s a wildcard and it might be a hotspur or a poblano unless you know its mama!
Harvested a couple about 8” length bronzy dark green for cooking. Walls are very thin, would not roast well. Cautious taste - barely detectable heat, mild flavor. Chopped and cooked up in a fritatta with green bell pepper and zucchini and the chili flavor came on true and bold. Wonderful fritatta.
What the blogs have in common. Cooking-- or drying then briefly cooking -- intensifies the flavor, the darker more mature pasillas bajio (mahogony or even black) are more intense but some say are bitter. From experience cooked green ones are very good (this year anyway). So the drying agenda is: group pasilla bajio roughly by chilacaness running the gamut to negroness, ignoring possible pasillaness and/or chiliness variances, and definitely losing the bajioness accepting no poblano. Dry in groups, keep ziplocked in a cool place and look for chili recipes.
We have sweet banana pepper this year too, a yellow that I harvested not, some are now bright red like wax devil horns. Tossed those rojos and some more pasilla bajios into a pork potroast with some garlic and white wine and chicken stock. We’ll see pretty soon if we have oinko diablo or just good roast.
Made roast beef last week with onions garlic and a cup of cabernet that cooked down no braise. Threw in about a quart of overripe Blue Lake green beans thicker than your little finger and darn they were good roasted with all that onion & potato carmelization. Note: green beans go in about 40 minutes before you are done roasting, along with the little potatoes.
Fond distant memories of Molly a long lost housemate from college where I shared a kind of Grateful Dead clubhouse with about 6 other so-called students. We rotated cooking which generally was pretty low quality output. For some reason I liked to cook even back then. But I was also pretty green and studious for the soc/psych/art residents lifestyle and Moll who was otherwise spoken for older and much more sophisticated loved to tease me mercilessly at dinner if people showed up on time which they usually did when I cooked. “Parks! Another Taste Orgasm!” as I blushed profusely giggled and squirmed and avoided eye contact for the remainder of the meal. Dear ol Moll: God Bless.