My New Favorite Pepper in the Garden

We eat a lot of peppers at our house.  Now, I don't grow the super-hot varieties.  I don't like the peppers that make you sweat and your nose run.  Jalapenos are about the top of the Scoville Scale for my liking, and I do love jalapenos.  I don't do habaneros or definitely not ghost peppers or Carolina reapers.  Mainly the varieties we grow in abundance are: Anaheim, Jalapenos, Sweet Bell (several varieties), Banana and now, my new favorite: Shishitos!  Shishito peppers originate in East Asia and this year is the first year to add this variety to my pepper roster.

Shishitos grow quickly and produce abundantly.  I'm picking peppers about every three days or so.  Here is a little mess of shishito peppers that I picked.  You'll notice from the photo below that I like to leave the long stem on each pepper, if possible.  I'll show you our favorite way to cook them.

We get a cast iron skillet heating up on the stovetop with coconut oil in the bottom of the pan.  While that's getting hot, I drizzle olive oil on top of the shishito peppers and shake to make sure the oil has coated all the peppers.  By now there's smoke coming from the skillet and it's time to pour the peppers in.  You'll hear a lot of sizzling and some smoke will rise, so turn the vent hood on.  We usually put a cover on the skillet to keep the heat in and stop the oil from popping and making a huge mess in the kitchen.  We keep shaking the skillet to keep the peppers moving.  You'll notice than the peppers are starting to blister and char.  This is exactly what you want.  Now, pour the peppers into a serving bowl.

At this time salt the peppers real good and cut a lime in half, squeezing the juice onto the peppers.  We also like to add chunks of bleu cheese (the recipe calls for cotija cheese), and I'm sure grated parmesan would be good as well.

Put a cover on the serving dish and shake real good to distribute the salt, lime juice and cheese evenly.

And now it's time to devour them.  They are not spicy - the just have a nice taste and make a good side dish for most any meal.  They have become a family favorite and were a key part of our Independence Day BBQ.

Walk-around Wednesday

We had Worship Service this afternoon at one of the nursing homes in town.  It was a nice time.  Our little church always enjoys visiting there, singing old hymns, praying, and opening the Word of God.  It was a 'sweet' time.  The Bible compares the Word of God to being priceless and sweet:

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.  Psalm 19:10

Speaking of honeycomb, one of our milk customers dropped by to pick up his milk and had a sweet treat for us.  He had just returned from Mittie, Louisiana, where he got some honeycomb just dripping with honey.  We are eating this by the spoonful, and it's not gonna last too long.

The second thing I saw today is that the two rows of cowpeas I planted are popping up nicely.  I have one row of purple hull peas and one row of black-eyed peas that we planted in the garden in the side yard where we had just harvested Irish Potatoes.  They seem to thrive in the heat and humidity.  The only thing that affects them are aphids, but I've got some neem oil ready to go when I see them on the plants.  I've bordered the pea patch with sunflowers.

Just to the north of the peas, I planted Cinderella pumpkins, Peanut Pumpkins and New England Sugar Pie Pumpkins along with some assorted gourds.  They aren't up yet.  This planting is an experiment because the seeds are old (2017) and were saved from some pumpkins my parents brought back from a trip to South Dakota.  I planted a lot of seeds on each hill, assuming that since they're old, the germination might not be too good.  We'll watch and see what happens.

Finally, I wanted to show you a basket of peppers we picked.  It is my new favorite variety.  They're called Shishito Peppers.  I'll show you next week a delicious recipe that we found for them.  

We'll talk again tomorrow night.