Pink Pickled Banana Peppers for Sandwiches

This is a fun little sandwich topping to whip up if you've got a beet and a handful of banana peppers.

If you are a gardener, hope is your best ally. And soil amendments. Hope and good dirt.

Between the vagaries of weather and varmints, you really need to be made of strong stuff--and have a lot of hope--to want to plant year after year. The first year? Optimism is available in spades. After that? It takes some doing.

After asking for 'all the vegetables' on my order at sub shops, I realized I love the zing of pickled banana peppers on my sandwiches. Since I got over my fear of making pickles I realized how damn easy it is to put up a jar or two. Produce + vinegar + water + garlic + time = pickles. I figured I could grow a few banana pepper plants and put up my own pickles.

The first year I planted one plant and harvested maybe 6-8 peppers over the course of 6 weeks. You can see how I used one here in my Layered Summer Vegetable Appetizer.

The second year I planted two plants. One fell into the swamp a varmint knocked one tiny plant over soon after planting [part of the reason I don't start my own seeds--I have less emotional investment in a plant if it fails soon after planting]. The survivor managed to produce probably a dozen or so peppers over the course of the summer. Once I even had enough ripe simultaneously, when combined with a pint of peppers from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, to put up a pint of pickled peppers. Woot.

This year, I planted 3 plants.  My hope has paid off. In spades. 

On a whim right before vacation, or rather born from the desperation of needing to empty the garden and fridge before a long trip where we ate locally while on the road, I whipped up a batch of quick refrigerator pickles using a leftover kohlrabi and a bunch of banana peppers that wouldn't last in the garden for 2 weeks. I had one beet left from the farm share and decided to peel and slice it and add to the jars. The result is so fun! Pink pickled peppers. I can see these diced on top of a deviled egg or egg salad, in grilled cheese, on pizza, or in sandwiches. Plenty of sandwiches--how pretty is that?

Grilled Korean Chicken Thighs with Squash and Peppers

A flavorful meal of Korean-seasoned farm share vegetables and chicken thighs, grilled and served with bok choy and rice. Told ya I was throwing the farm share on the grill!

I may not be superstitious but I do believe in signs.  When I read a recipe for bibimbap and learn that the secret is a spoonful of Korean hot pepper bean paste (gochujang) which keeps for a while once opened, in the fridge my brain makes a mental note "get gochujang". When I read an article calling for gochujang to make sweet & spicy grilled vegetables and chicken thighs right when I've got the veggies from the farm share--I just go for it. Even with a too small grill (this was last year).

This recipe makes a pretty snazzy meal, a departure from my usual simply seasoned & grilled goodies. This complex flavor is deceptively simple--you throw some stuff in a bowl, whisk it together, pour it into 2 bags, dump prepped veggies and chicken into those bags, throw them in the fridge and walk away. When you're ready to cook, fire up the grill and the rice cooker, do a bit of work on the stove (or use your grill as a summer kitchen) and you're sitting down to a flavorful meal pretty quickly.

For other recipes using patty pan squash, please see my Summer Squash Recipe Collection. For other recipes using peppers, please see my Pepper Recipe Collection. For other recipes using bok choy, please see my Bok Choy Recipe Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me looking for ways to enjoy the produce from the farm share, farmers market, or generous gardener.

Pizza with Beet Greens, Potato and Sausage

A savory and satisfying pizza with a roasted garlic oil base topped with sautéed beet greens, potatoes and sausage.

When life rattles you, go back to basics to find your groove.

My groove is Friday night pizza night. My family likes to eat pizza and watch movies in the basement on Friday nights, and I like to use the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to feed us.

You could say it's a winning combination.

Making pizzas using farm share ingredients is a technique I've developed over time, 10 farm share seasons to be precise. I've shared homemade pizza how to do so in My Pizza Primer and Seven Tips for Making Pizzas at Home posts. Not all pizzas have been winners so they don't appear on this blog, but for the most part adding some farm fresh vegetables to a pizza greatly enhances the flavor and decreases the remaining amount of veggies in the fridge.

My fridge--no, I want to talk about my freezers. I've defrosted and reorganized all freezer space in the past day, all because my neighbor called and said she was half an hour out with half a cow, and did we want any? Thanks to a friend who offered empty freezer in her garage for the 'ack I don't know what to do with all this there's no room'--i.e., the heart, tongue(s) and liver--I managed to fit everything in while still saving room in the fruit and vegetable freezer for putting up summer produce. I'm not back in that groove yet though--there are banana peppers to be pickled, and they can just keep hanging out on the plant because I am not yet ready!

For other recipes using beet greens, please see my Beet Recipes Collection. For other recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. For other pizza ideas, and I've got a whole mess of them, please see the Visual Pizza Recipe Index, or my Friday Night Pizza Night Pinterest board.