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Recipe: hot giardiniera pickled peppers

Over the past several years, if I’m not out shooting the fall colors on my birthday, I’m out on recon for the fall colors on my birthday. Sometimes my birthday coincides with the first day of autumn and I’ve always loved that. I couldn’t wait for the heat to GO AWAY in southern Virginia. Luckily, I have more pleasant associations with it now: fall colors, cooler weather, sometimes a freak early snow storm (yes please!). But I’m almost always working through my birthday and this year was no exception. Jeremy decided to drive 5.5 hours to Crested Butte this weekend to nominally celebrate my birthday, see the fall colors with me, and get a little mountain biking in. It was a lovely weekend and a most happy birthday.

birthday morning near red mountain pass (iphone)

working on building a respectable layer of dirt on the car (iphone)

Dinner is always a moving target and dictated by the whims of the weather. It just so happened that sunset was a bust on my birthday, releasing me a little earlier than usual. My thoughts turned to what was good to eat in town. In Crested Butte, there is a lot that is good, but my favorite restaurant is The Lobar for sushi. So we went there to celebrate with a low key, but fabulous dinner.

hamachi sashimi

dragon scales (spicy tuna wrapped in shiso leaves and tempura fried)

seared scallop slices with lime, cilantro, sriracha

With Jeremy’s return home on Monday, I’m pretty much back to my quick, affordable, and convenient meals of cold salads, sandwiches, and fruit. I come prepared with a cooler, nalgene bottles (for ice and water – especially when the motel rooms don’t have refrigerators), dishes and utensils for one, sponge and dishsoap, dishtowels… What I failed to bring was a jar of my pickled hot peppers, the stuff that makes sandwiches magically delicious.

celery, carrots, red bell peppers, jalapenos, serranos, olives, cauliflower

you’ll also need: white vinegar, pickling spices, sugar, and pickling salt

My obsession with pickled hot peppers has been in the making all my life, but the peppers that really pushed me over the edge were the hot giardiniera from Snarf’s. Snarf’s is my favorite sandwich shop in Boulder (they have several stores in the Denver metro area) and it’s in no small part due to those tantalizing peppers. I have been researching different recipes for the past couple of years, but didn’t start making them until this summer… because I learned how to can.

chop, chop, chop

spicy chop chop chop

The first recipe I tried was one that had the intention of imitating the Snarf’s hot giardiniera (I don’t know about you, but giardiniera always makes me think of the word giardia, which is unfortunate). I doubled the recipe in crazy anticipation of pickled hot pepper love. Step-wise it is easy. Most of what is involved is chopping the vegetables and brining them. And when you brine the vegetables, you essentially do nothing for 12-18 hours – right on!

make the brining liquid (salt and water)

add the vegetables to the brine

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mexico city style roasted corn with chipotle mayonnaise

I just got back from a lovely dinner at Mizuna in Denver. I rarely get down to Denver (to be honest, I avoid the city – I’m a country mouse), but 1) I’ve been hearing about this restaurant for seven years 2) we were meeting with a super fun couple and 3) there was a hand off of goods. More on the goods in a second… I’m so glad we finally went to Mizuna because everything about it was terrific – the food, the wine, the service. Here are two of my favorite plates from tonight:

hamachi crudo with edamame and shishito peppers

lobster mac & cheese

Now what exactly was handed off, you ask? I brought three jars of Chinese hot chili sauces to my friend, Ellen, and she gave me a delivery of her delectable salt caramels. Why salt caramels?

Well, I needed them for a couple of care packages… for you!

This isn’t a sponsored any such thing, this is me saying thank you for being a wonderful, supportive, funny, kind, and friendly readership. I love my regular and irregular commenters as much as those who de-lurk to say hi as much as the folks who are too shy to comment, but send really touching emails to me directly. You know who you are – you’re all awesome! So I have put together a little bit of Colorado in two care packages to give away to two of my awesome saucesome readers. The packages will include:

helliemae’s salt caramels

a bag of whole bean coffee from boxcar coffee roasters

frasca‘s red pepper jelly from cured

a boulder county farmers market tote bag

a t-shirt of your choice from either salto coffee works or tin shed sports

That’s not all! I’m also tucking in a jar of organic Colorado peach jam and a jar of organic Colorado tomato jam, both from my kitchen.

ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY!

1) Introduce yourself to the rest of us by sharing one interesting fact about YOU in the comments section of this post.
2) One comment per person, please.
3) Entries will be accepted through Friday, September 28, 2012.
4) The care packages will ship worldwide.
5) Two winners will be selected at random by Kaweah.
6) Winners will be announced on Monday, October 1, 2012.

Good luck!

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Sometimes you find the best food in the darnedest places. For instance, when I was in Portland, Maine last month, everyone was telling me to eat lobster, lobster, and more lobster. Sleep on lobster, bathe in lobster. Lobster lobster lobster! The first night, we started at El Rayo Taqueria and then moved on to Cantina El Rayo next door. There was no lobster on our menu. But wait – someone casually set a plate of roasted corn covered in cotija cheese in front of us early on in the meal. The cobs were cut up into 2-inch wide nibbles and everyone politely sampled the corn. Joy was sitting across from me and later into the evening I saw her reach for a second one which totally made me feel okay about grabbing a second! We were pretty hooked on that corn.

nice, healthy ears of corn

give them a soak in cold water

My neighbors seated to my right were Margaret Hathaway and Karl Schatz of Ten Apple Farm. They wrote and photographed this brilliant book (among others!) that I received upon my arrival in Maine titled Portland, Maine Chef’s Table which is a collection of recipes from the best chefs around Portland. IT INCLUDES THE RECIPE FOR THIS FABULOUS CORN. When Karl and Margaret told me, I smiled and did a happy dance (Gangnam style) in my head.

chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, mayonnaise, garlic, cilantro, lime zest and juice

chopped, juiced, zested

As soon as my package of goodies from Maine arrived in the post, I opened the book and went straight to the recipe. The ingredients are relatively easy to source and corn is still in season although at the tail end. Get on this now.

purée the peppers, sauce, garlic, cilantro, zest, and lime juice together

stir the purée into the mayonnaise

chipotle mayonnaise

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: peach upside down cake

It would seem that everyone on the flats got word of the leaves turning and came in droves to the mountains over the weekend. Either that or they were looking for their final summer jaunt before the autumnal equinox arrives this Saturday. Bluebird skies and gold stands mark the start of my favorite season. We lose our daylight hours fastest this time of year.

cottonwoods gone yellow

sunsets don’t linger as long

We drove in the opposite direction from most of the traffic and joined my parents for dinner at our favorite sushi bar in Boulder. Fall is when they leave Colorado, because they aren’t big fans of winter. I think they had a nice summer here though, with all of the happy hours, exploring, dinners, lunches, visits, bottles of wine consumed, and Kaweah-time.

hamachili special

And the farmers market was abuzz with activity. People were looking to get their summer loving on, but it started to look like the season was winding down. At the northern end of the market, there was a sign where I normally bought my peaches, “Sold out! See you next year!” That was like a little knife in my gut.

greens, peppers, eggplants, onions…

and still some tomatoes

I promised if you came back today, I’d have something other than tomatoes. I did manage a few pounds of late season peaches from Colorado’s western slope. Sweet, juicy, almost buttery. Panic sets in when you realize these sunshiny orbs are on their way out for the year and a sudden urge to make yet another batch of jam overrides all reason. I did just that and still had a few pounds left over. It’s been a while since I’ve baked a cake…

peaches, butter, sugars, flour, milk, vanilla, eggs, baking soda, salt

There is an ever-growing list of recipes I want to make. I should say lists, because they reside on sticky notes – both virtual and physical, scraps of paper, notes on my iPhone, emails to myself. Fruity upside down cakes surfaced recently. They have great appeal because I’m more of a fruit girl than a cake girl and then there is that whole business of caramelized goodness. Why not use some of the last peaches?

melt the butter and brown sugar

cook until it bubbles

Something I learned about the peaches this summer was that different varieties marched through the markets. When I first got my grubby little hands on peaches for jamming in July, they were clingstone peaches. Good thing I was jamming them because it was like a peach murder scene trying to get those buggers off the pits. Thankfully, this late season batch was of the freestone variety – which easily releases from the pit and makes for pretty slices.

wonderful

arrange in the pan

**Jump for more butter**