543 and Counting!

Day 1: The guys love their munchies.  One of their favorites are Jalapeno poppers and I have gotten pretty damn good at making them if I do say so myself.  Last year I searched the web for the perfect recipe and after a few trials I found one that was excellent.  Very time consuming for the amount that I make, but the smiles and oohhs and aaahhhs I get are all worth it.  This year I started with a peck basket full of peppers.  Mike spent the day at Mona & Dave's helping to fix their well and I spent the day in my PJ's cutting and seeding the little buggers and watching football.

By the time I finished I had almost filled one of those grocery green bags you get in the veggie section with the pepper halves.  Then Mona calls to tell me that she is cooking dinner and I have to get dressed because Mike was on his way home to shower and get me.  So my two day pepper process is going to tun into a 3 day one.  Believe me I am totally ok with that because dinner was amazing.  One of my favorite by the way, spaghetti and garlic bread!

Day 2:  Now comes the fun part.... Stuffing the peppers!  Here is the perfect recipe that I found for the center goo:

1. 3 bricks of cream cheese softened
2. 1 lb. shredded cheddar cheese
3. 1 package bacon pieces ( the salad kind and NOT BACO'S these no bacon in those things)
4. 2 tsp. garlic powder

Mix all those together and fill each pepper half.  Use a disposable aluminum baking pan, for me it is a large one, put a piece of wax paper on the bottom and start filling the pan with the stuffed pepper halves.   Use a piece of wax paper between each layer as you go.  When you are finished, cover with aluminum foil and refridge over night.  Doing this makes them firm and easier to work with when coating and breading.

Day 3:  Prep for freezing.... a few simple steps and you are almost done.. things you need... milk, all purpose flour, bread crumbs, and cookie cooling racks.

1. Fill 1 bowl with milk and 1 with all purpose flour.  Place a few stuffed halves in the milk, then coat each one with flour.  Roll well to make sure that they are well coated.  Refill bowls with flour & milk as needed
2. Place floured peppers on cooling racks and allow to dry.
3. Fill 1 bowl with bread crumbs and refill your milk bowl.  Dip your floured pepper halves one at a time in the milk then roll in the bread crumbs.
4. Place breaded peppers on rack to dry.  
5. When dry follow steps #'s 3 & 4 again
6. After peppers have dried from final breading place back into your pan with fresh wax paper dividers and place whole pan in freezer.  Allow to freeze over night.  
7. Take pan out of freezer, separate peppers into how ever many servings you would like, place in freezer bags, remove air, seal, label and return to freezer.

          

Now when ever you are ready all you have to do is pop a bag out of the freezer and deep fry or bake.  So much cheaper than buying them from the store.  **MAKE SURE YOU WEAR RUBBER GLOVES WHILE WORKING WITH THE PEPPERS**

When you actually remember....

     Have you ever seen something that some one else has made and thought to yourself....." I can do that better"  For years the guys and I have been wandering through the various buildings at the Geauga County Fair looking at all the veggies and canned goods that people make, and we would comment that the stuff I make looks better than what won ribbons.  Mike has been bugging me for about the last 5 years to enter something that I have made and see what happens.  Year after year I would forget to get a fair book to check the entry dates, or I would call Betty and ask her and she would laugh and say "last week".  This year I went on line early and printed a fair book and made sure  to mark the entry date on the calendar.  So at the end of June the canning started and I got very busy, but I did remember to fill out the entry form and submit it.  I randomly went through the classes and chose a few for canned goods and two for baking.
     Luckily all of my items had to be turned in on Tuesday before the fair started so I got all my jars ready, nice and sparkly clean and waited till the last darn minute to bake the stupid cookies (see previous post).  Packed everything up and headed to the fair grounds to drop all of it off.  When I got to the building there was a small line so Betty and I took the time to people watch, like usual! LOL  When I got up to the table there was another lady unpacking her jars also, and she had these pretty little material tops on her lids.  Betty's comment was "sorry I forgot to tell you about all these freaks that cut material and make these pretty little jar toppers".  We laughed about it to ourselves and went about our business unpacking my stuff.  When the others had cleared out we took a few minutes to talk to the lady behind the booth checking stuff in and asked about judging and did those freaky jar tops count for a score.  Thankfully we were told they did not matter at all and the only reason that most people use those was to mark their jars for easy pick up at the end of fair.  Needless to say I will become one of those freaks next year!

      So I get home from dropping everything off and set about to the rest of my afternoon.  Then Mona called after she dropped her stuff off and found out that there were over 850 entries in the canned goods section.  My initial response was "I don't have a hope in hell of placing in anything" not that I really thought I had a chance anyway it was just my opinion that my canning looked better.  Wednesday rolls around and we all head back to the fair to drop off Darren's and Dave's veggies that they entered.  While we were there we wanted to sneak a peak into the barn where the canned stuff is housed but they had it blocked off while they were judging.  We head back home, finish chores and cuss and discuss when we are going to head back on Thursday.  Dave & Mona were going in the AM and Mike and I decided to wait till Darren got home from school to go.  So it's Thursday morning and my phone starts to ring....it's Mona and she is talking a mile a minute.  One of the things I understood her say was "You won sweet corn".

So now I am excited and can't wait to call Mike to tell him I won something.  I spent most of the day giggling to myself about actually winning a ribbon.  Then Mona calls back and told me I won ribbons in a lot of the categories that I entered.  Then Betty called to let me know that Darren won a second place with his entry of white eggs.  So I am totally excited and I can't wait till the guys get home so we can leave and the time is dragging.  We finally get there and head right over to the canned goods and I grab the results book.  I am in shock!  Out of 13 entries I won 8 ribbons, 2 blue, 3 red, 2 white and 1 yellow.  Not bad for my first time entering anything in the fair.

Proper Etiquette for Baking Cookies to Enter in the County Fair.....

Most of you who know me, know that I am a total "Blonde".  And yes as I get older the "Blonde Moments" are coming more frequently.  While I was trying to bake cookies to enter in the Geauga County Fair my blondness totally reared it's ugly head.  I am now going to fill you in on the proper etiquette that I learned from my baking experience......

Rule #1... No doing the laundry, do not vacuum the floors.  Most definitely do not go out to the garden to pick anything!  Stick close enough to the timer to hear the dang thing.  Nothing like being in the basement filling the washer with dirty clothes and suddenly you stop and a light bulb above your head goes off..."Oh My God.....The Cookies!!"

Rule #2.... Do not bake cookie dough that is supposed to be refrigerated on a 97 degree day.  This does tend to become a slimy, sticky mess when you forget to put it back in the fridge in between batches.

Rule #3.... Do not tell your 20 year old son that you are baking cookies.... This one should be self explanatory.

Rule #4.... After spending the time to type out the recipe and making it real pretty, remember to take it in with the dang cookies.

Last but not least.....

Rule #5.....  Have fun and always think positive.  You never know what might happen....

Yep you guessed it I WON!!!

Whirlwind of a garden.....

What started out as a nice little garden has become an amazing crop producer....  The baskets and bushels have been rolling in and the jars have been rolling (or should I say Darren has carried them) down to the canning room.  I have lost count on the total picked so far in tomatoes but I think I am at about 9 bushels.  A whopping 110 lbs. of cucumbers have been picked and pickled.  Amazing what 6 plants will produce when the little buggers refused to grow here in over 4 years.  The canning kettles have been going almost non stop for the last few weeks and I am starting to wonder if I am going to run out of room for everything.  I am almost done with the green beans.  Those I had two plantings and over 60 quarts are put up for winter.  Sweet corn was the only thing that we did not grow.  But thanks to Mona, I met a wonderful Amish lady who takes orders and I was able to get 30 dozen canned this year!  Today I spent the day going through all the jars and getting the ones I put aside for the Geauga County Fair cleaned and ready to take tomorrow. Only problem that I have right now is that there are 25 quarts of tomato stuff outside on the picnic table and three more cases of pints sitting on the floor that have not been put on the shelves yet.  Thank goodness that the jalapenos that will be coming in soon are going to become poppers and end up in the freezer.