[CH] [Was: strawberry salsa] extra strawberries?

Babs Woods (babs@jfwhome.funhouse.com)
Sat, 07 Aug 1999 17:59:46 -0400 

Catching up a bit, here.


> Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 19:13:08 +0200
> From: "T" <joemama@swissonline.ch>
> Subject: [CH] Strawberry salsa?
> 
> I've got too many strawberries, and a bunch of various small chinense from
> my overwintered plants.
> 
> Anyone got a recipe?
> 
> Tom
> 
> http://members.tripod.com/CH_ili

I don't have a strawberry salsa recipe of my own, but some time ago I got
into making my own liqueurs.  These are done as simple infusions.  Simply
done:

In 1qt mason jars, place:

about 2C whole, fresh, cleaned, trimmed strawberries
about 1/2C sugar
about 1/2C good brandy
fill the rest with 100 proof vodka

Let sit in a cool, dark place with a plastic jar lid (I've recently
discovered these, and they're ideal for this sort of thing because they're
non-metal and go in the dishwasher to clean).  Let sit at least one month
(4 weeks).  Strain berries out through coffee filters set in a plastic
funnel into a second clean jar.  Decant into bottles and close tightly.  

This also works with other berries, and I currently have this going with
some fresh apricots.  The apricots I am letting sit for at least 3 months.
(I make something similar using ripe cherries, brown sugar, and dark rum
that's called "Cherry Bounce", but everyone else thinks it tastes like 
cough syrup.  Phillistines!)

You can also do this using a sugar syrup and more booze, but this is the
really simple, straightforward version.  


What you do with the resulting liqueur is up to you, but making spiced
booze is similarly easy.  Habanero Schnapps, anyone?  Schnapps can also
be used to cook with, for things like fettucini in vodka sauce, which I
don't have a recipe for offhand.  I think it's a cream and vodka sauce.
-------------

Back in June someone mentioned Vidalia Onions.  Well, I've gotten a hot
sauce from Pendery's made with them which is *wonderful* stuff.  It's
"Vidalia Onion Hot Sauce", made by Oak Hill Farms.  There I was thinking
it would be disappointing and sweet and wimpy.  Riiight.  This stuff is
great!  It's actually pretty hot and has a very nice flavour.


Gardening:
We're in the midst of a drought here in the Midlantic and it's been hot
enough that we planted very late in addition.  It's been hot enough that
strenuous activity has been warned against on the hotter days and other
activities keep us away on the other days, so the garden is smaller this
year than last year.  Plus, we've had that terrorist, Bambi, to contend 
with.  So far we have one Anaheim (not doing well), one Savina (we had 3
at the start, and have one or two indoors we may replace them with in a
day or so), some red cherry hots, and two orange Habs.  We have other 
veggies, but these are this year's chilis.  So far so good.  We water the
garden almost every morning for about 30-45 minutes and after that it's
all on its own.  This may seem like a lot, but we're on a well and it's
not as high pressure as we probably need so we're not apparently using
as much water as that sounds like.  

We also have been using black plastic mulch as a weed barrier this year, 
other things we were trying out didn't work very well and I insisted by 
executive fiat that this was The Solution and proceeded to back it up by 
using only that this year.  I don't know how the cole crops feel, but for
the tropicals like the chilis and tomatoes which like it hot, this seems
to be working well because the soil stays warmer.  We also have plastic 
lumber to hold the raised beds in place with corner stakes that are a lot 
like joist hardware.  Those two things alone seem to be helping things 
greatly, so I recommend that people try these out.  In this weather, not 
having to be out in the heat weeding is much safer than risking heat 
stroke and sunburn and I'm glad we did this.  We had no idea the weather 
would be quite this brutal, so we got lucky in that sense.  Anyone who's
used the plastic mulch, have your peppers been hotter as a result of the
added temperature from the mulch?  I know growing conditions make a
sometimes big difference in that.  

                                -babs

-- 
"Excuse me while I dance a little jig of despair."