Vegetable season

We have been so lucky with a warm fall here on the West Coast of Canada. There is nothing like bright red skies, incredible yellows, oranges, greens, and browns in the trees, and amazing fall colours of the ocean… and all that enhanced by the last warm rays of sunshine for this season.

The other day, I could really feel that fall air and I immediately thought of chestnuts. Mmm so good! I had to get some. So when I was picking up more vegetables for canning from my local store, I saw they had bags of chestnuts. So I bought a bag. 🙂 At home, I cut their shells a little so they can release the steam when they are roasting and put them in the oven at 375°F. Just until the shells open up. The house was filled with this beautiful aroma ahhh It was beautiful. My dinner that day was tea and chestnuts. Yum!

I don’t know about you, but I love hot and spicy. Especially when it comes to peppers. When I was at the store I also bought some long peppers that were very mild at the tips and slightly hot closer to the stems. At home, I poked them with a sharp knife just to let some air escape while roasting (just like the chestnuts 🙂 ) And I roasted them on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Just the peppers – nothing else. While they were roasting, I put 2 tbsp of olive oil, 4 tbsp of vinegar, and 1/2 tsp salt in each jar where I was going to can them. When the peppers were done (be careful not to over-roast them; just enough for their skin to crack), I placed them in the jars in layers with cauliflower, carrots, and garlic cloves. I made sure I pressed everything down really well so there is as little air between the layers as possible. I closed the lids and brought the jar to a boil covered with water in a huge pot. Once the water boiled for a minute, I turned off the stove and took the jars out. They are very very hot at this point so if you’re doing this… be very careful not to burn yourself. And voila! 😀 So delicious!

A couple of months ago I signed up with a company, Blue Moon Organics, that delivers organic vegetable to your door. I love the idea because I rarely have time to go to the store especially with two toddlers and my husband usually works late. So a delivery makes sure we get our vegetables AND we eat them … because the next box is coming 😀 So yesterday we got our first box. And it was full of goodies – beets, apples, pears, potatoes, carrots, celery, cauliflower, bell peppers, lettuce, bananas, Asian pears, broccoli, and kale. And it’s all organic and mostly local (with the exception of the bananas).

I decided to look up what I can do with the greens from the beets. I know a lot of people make delicious things with them but I had never tried. And I found a recipe which I absolutely loved. I added some sesame seeds on top too. Unbelievably flavourful and delicious. If you happen to have beet greens, you have to try this.

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