Weekend Things ~ Chili-in'

Way back a month or so ago, after our first frost, I picked all of the chili peppers off the plants, cooked the few poblanos that made it to maturity into chile rellenos, and stuffed the rest in a bag. C used quite a few in making salsa, but the rest, we just kind of forgot about, ignored.

Once in a while, one of us would say, "We should do something about those chiles," and the other would agree, and then nothing would happen. Then this weekend, C pointed out to me that they were starting to rot, and the crisis that I usually require for action spurred me on. 

I sorted out the still good chiles from the nasty ones and had enough to make two jars of pickled jalapeños, using Catherine Newman's brilliant refrigerator pickle anything recipe. I had some brine left over, so I threw a bunch of mini rainbow carrots in a jar and pickled them, too.

The rest of not-rotten chiles, which are a different variety (I'm not sure what), were already starting to whither a bit, so I strung them up to dry.

I suppose the crisis-response method of food preservation is not the most efficient, and it's fairly wasteful (oh, those sad chilis I had to throw away), but sometimes it's what's needed to get the job done.