If you’ve ever grown peppers, you know they can be quite prolific.
I usually grow at least once variety I can dry, but I’ll admit that I still haven’t used all of my dried peppers from last year. Or the year before that.
Growing purple peppers in a pot on my porch
These purple peppers were not a variety I was familiar with, but they rounded out an order to get free shipping from one of the Etsy stores I but small plants from (yes it sounds like a weird source for plants, but it has worked surprisingly well the last couple years). The listing called them a Buena Mulata pepper and I did not look them up before buying.
The fruits have been delicious and I love them on sandwiches or with eggs. There’s a zing of spiciness, a hint of fruitiness, and a medium amount of meatiness. And a lot of them! This is just from one single plant, two harvests about a week apart.
I just looked them up for this post, and it looks like if I leave them longer they will turn red and dry well. So that’s probably what I do for the rest of their season.
A pint jar of purple peppers being pickled (by means of fermentation)
For this experiment, I boiled the pint jar, a jar weight, a fermentation lid, and the ring to hold8 the lid on.
Once I pulled the jar out and let it cool a bit, and I started off with two fresh bay leaves and two pinches of Egyptian cumin.
I washed the peppers and peeled off their stems without cutting into the skin. I also peeled about 4 cloves of garlic.
Then I wedged the peppers in as tightly as I could with the garlic cloves popped in randomly as I went.
This time I weighed my water and tried to get 4% salinity, since I might a well try a more proper pickle. I also added a little sugar because I find sugar pairs well with spicy, and I’d read that too strong capsaicin can inhibit fermentation, so I figured a little extra food wouldn’t hurt.
We’ll see!
Update Sunday 3 August 2025: the peppers are fermenting and have lost some of their color.
I have not yet tasted the peppers.
3 jars of pickles. In back is a half gallon jar of cucumber pickles. The middle one is a 20 ounce jar of spicy green and banana peppers. In front is the pint jar of purple peppers.
But I did start a whole other batch of peppers pickling! This new batch used some of the brine from the cucumber pickles as the start.
The new batch also had fresh bay leaves and brown mustard seeds as seasoning, but I also added some fresh sage. This was a mix of all the other peppers, so some banana peppers, a lot of Korean gochugaru style (still green) peppers… And a third one which might also be the Korean peppers or might be something else
I know everyone else has already gotten excited about fermentation pickling and I am slow. But I’ve now got an abundance of cucumbers coming out of my garden, and it’s too many to just quick pickle.
I only took a picture of the assembled jar and none of the process of assembling it. Maybe more pictures later as it ferments. Right now the half dozen cucumbers in a large jar are bright green and packed tightly. – Sunday 28 July 2025
So I started off looking for a recipe that wasn’t all about the dill (because it’s not my favorite flavor – it’s fine, but if there’s a choice I’d like to pick other things). I ended up on this blog – https://www.blessthismessplease.com/easy-fermented-pickles/ (site has medium intrusive advertising) which seemed like it prioritized good advice over a specific recipe. The one thing I’ve read other places that it did not mention was trimming the blossom end of the cucumber to reduce softening. Is that advice only relevant to vinegar pickles? I went ahead and trimmed the tips while washing them.
I got half gallon jars this year just for canning. They don’t fit anywhere in my shelves, so I’m going to have to fill them all up with pickling this Summer I guess. *goals*
My largest dutch oven is an oval, so ikt will fit the half gallon jar for boiling and sterilizing – I put a hand towel on the bottom to cushion the glass. I also boiled a glass weight and a burping kid that fits wide mouth canning jars at the same time.
After I pulled the jar, I decided to let it cool. Unlike water bath canning, there was no direction to heat up the brine at all, and I guess that might kill the bacteria we want. So if everything going into the jar will be room temperature or cooler then the jar should also be room temperature.
The instructions say to add something like bay leaves (ideally fresh) for the tannins (and flavor), so I did. Then I added a mix of coriander seeds (from last year’s garden), brown mustard seeds, and a few nigella sativa seeds. Oh! And two bay berries!
Then I stuffed about half a dozen cucumbers inside – the middle one poked up a bit and there was still a lot of headspace, so I cut up the last cucumber into chunks – so I’ll get to find out how both cut and whole cucumbers work.
Only then did I remember the garlic cloves I had peeled, so those got squeezed in wherever they would fit.
I used 1 sixteen ounce bottle of water with some salt added as would fit in the freshly opened bottle. That filled the jar about 3/4 of the way up. I did not measure the cucumbers or the salt. And I was a little worried it wasn’t quite salty enough, so I refilled the water bottle halfway with tap water I had already boiled (and let cool) with a slightly higher concentration of salt to top things off.
The instructions said to top with either a weight or a cabbage or grape leaf in order to keep the cucumbers submerged. So I figured why not both!
And then I put on the burping lid and have set it on the corner of my kitchen counter that’s not next to the stove or the dishwasher. It doesn’t really get dark there, so I threw a kitchen towel over it.
Now for waiting and seeing what happens!
Edit Monday 29 July 2025: I think it’s looking like a healthy start to this pickle
The green color of the cucumbers has started to dull. Some of the spices are floating. The edge of the cabbage leaf still looks somewhat crisp. The water is slightly cloudy, but not bad
Edit Sunday 3 August 2025: I’ve opened the jar and used done of the brine to start my next batch of pickled peppers.
I tasted one of the cut sections of cucumber that I used to fill in the top, and it tastes like a pickle! Crisp and tangy! I also ate the cabbage leaf I had stuck in the top.
Week old cucumber pickles
The liquid is definitely cloudy, which is what was foretold as the result of using iodized salt. Cloudy picking liquid is more disappointing than I thought it would be, so I guess I’ll be sticking with plain salts in the future.
There is no mold and there’s no yeast film at the top, either. Everything smells and tastes good.
I am also disappointed in these fermentation lids – they do have enough flexibility to bulge with fermentation gases, but the lids are not self burping as promised. I keep having to loosen the rings to let gas out.
I could probably move them to the refrigerator now, but I’m more excited about the experiment than about pickles, so I’m going to keep them going and see what happens.
I boiled the jar weight before putting it back into the jar.
I’m the chatelaine for my local SCA group, so I’ve got custody of the bags of loaner clothes for people who haven’t yet put together their own outfits to wear to events.
We’ve been trying to refresh our options and have donated some of our garb to a newly opened college branch and also had a large chunk of our male garb destroyed by a student’s landlord. So we’ve been replacing some things. Because of the demographics of our group, we’ve mostly been focusing on replacing with larger sized outfits.
But then I had a thinner person looking for garb! For an event at the end of the week. And I was pretty sure we wouldn’t have anything to loan. (But I also didn’t want to promise to have made something because I have never tried to sew with this short a deadline. So I also didn’t ask for measurements)
Step 1 – ‘planning’: I fucked up my math I knew this person was a size small and had a 31″ waist. So I looked up other standard measurements for a men’s small and decided to go with a 34″ chest. So I took my fabric and measured out 34″, added a bit of extra for comfort, and figured the tunic length would be selvedge to selvedge (~52″) folded in half. And went ahead and cut there.
… And then I realized I had measured out a whole circumference and not the half a circumference I would need. But then I decided to see if I could make the entire piece from this already cut fabric.
Very rough cutting diagram with poorly remembered measurements
Cutting the pieces: So I then divided in half? Well, no. I figured I should make it just a touch wider just in case and just sort of eyeballed how wide the torso would be. This cutting diagram has measurements, but I didn’t actually put a ruler to that part.
Then I measured from my shoulder to over the palm and where my fingers start. And the number 26″ is what I think I got, but I didn’t write it down. It was more than half of the tunic, which does seem very long (or a short tunic) but it was fine.
And I double checked that the narrower part divided in half would make sleeves wide enough. According to the size chart I found, I was aiming for an 15″ upper arm. And these were narrower. BUT once you cut off the taper for the wrist and flip them around to be underarm gussets it would just make that number. Honestly, until it was tried on I still want sure whether this gusset would be big enough. For the wrist diameter, I measured the widest circumference of my hand (because hand sizes have little relationship with waist sizes) and went with a little less than 10″. I centered that on the sleeves and cut the corners off up to the halfway/elbow part.
Honestly, I’m not sure how/why it was still working. But also I figured that I didn’t actually know this person’s size, so we’re winging it!
And then the remaining square I split in half lengthwise and then cut into right triangles for gores.
Sewing it together: first I got the gussets seen to the wide part of the arms.
Then I got the arms sewn to the midpoint on the torso – being careful to keep track of the inside and outside of the pieces. I love flat felling when sewing linen, but sometimes the inside and outside are too similar and I’ll flip pieces. But this time – since it was for someone else, I was very sure to keep track.
Sewing the gusset to the arm with a flat felled stitch that is two parallel running stitches
Once the arms were on, I added the gores. Again, I’m not swearing to the measurements in the diagram. My gores only came up to about 3″ below the arm, and that was with sewing on the hypotenuse (which you want to do so that the bias edge is stabilized by the on grain edge), so that’s why I was free to do that after the sleeves sewing.
Then while I was still flat, and easy to access both the inside and outside, I went to making the neck hole and adding a facing. I decided to turn the facing to the inside, instead of making a contrasting decorative panel, because that’s more appropriate to a wider range of cultures and time periods. But I’d used up all of my square of fabric! Instead of cutting a new piece from the remaining cloth, I went to my scrap stash and looked for a piece the right size (in a lighter color because it would be on the inside and showing through the handkerchief weight fabric a little). There was a white piece that was just perfect.
I feel like I should be able to pin the facing in place and just cut the neckline for both pieces at the same time, but I figured I’d be safe and cut the neckline (narrower than you actually want – because seam allowance – and a keyhole slit for ease of putting it on) on the primary fabric first. Then just a rough (slightly smaller) hole on the facing. Pin all of the sides flat and even. Then sew around the neckline.
After you’ve gotten it sewn, then trim the inside of the circle to the right shape and amount of steam allowance you want. And clip the seam allowance at the curves and corners. Then I flipped it to the inside and did another line of stitching around the neckline pulling the facing in slightly so that the yellow fabric would cover all the way over the turn.
Then I spread the facing fabric as smoothly as I could and pinned it in place. A more diligent person would have paused to iron here. And I whip stitched the edges of the facing down.
Now! I could finally sew up the long side seams.
Three flat felled seams coming together neatly is just so very satisfying
I’ve found that when I’m flat felling, I do have to cut in a little deeper in the seam allowance when I’m going around the points of the gores so that I have room to tuck all of the raw edges into the seam.
Finished garment!
For the side seams, I started at the wrist because that’s the part that most visible needs to line up. Then a running stitch down to the hem. And then on the way back, fold everything over and flat, and then another running stitch holding the folks down on the way up. It’s surprisingly fast and much more stable than I ever thought running stitches would be.
When I came to the end of each wrist with a finished seam, I went ahead and folded the fabric on twice and hemmed the wrist opening.
At the end, all that was left was a quick hem of the bottom of the skirts.
If I had more time (or if it returns to gold key) I would like to add some simple embroidery to the area over the facing to keep the material folded inside flat when it gets washed. But that is an experiment for the future.
Meanwhile, I did finish in time, AND the tunic fit the recipient perfectly.
Close up of the finished dish with a nest of cooked shredded kale and a soft poached/steamed egg in the middle of that nest
I’ve already written up this recipe a couple of times, but I wanted to update it. Here’s the post where I cite the original Roman recipes that inspired this meal.
Diced purple onions in a skillet
Start with finely chopping up a few slices of purple onion and sauteing them in a little olive oil.
A pile of shredded kale with a bottle of sweet red wine and a bottle of Red Boat fish sauce in the background
Let’s talk about ingredients
Kale – I like growing Red Russian Kale because it has a flatter leaf that is easier than most varieties to check for bugs as it is growing, but also a softer texture that cooks up nicely when harvested. This recipe will work with any variety of kale.
Wine – This should be a red wine, and I prefer a sweeter variety. Honestly, I love the kosher Manischewitz concord grape or blackberry flavors both for drinking and cooking with. But I also keep a bottle in my refrigerator of boiled down and concentrated red wine from any time I have a leftover partial bottle, and that would also work well here. Whatever you’ve got.
Fish sauce – I am pretty sure the ancient Romans used at least two different kinds of fish sauce. There’s the garum, which is very light colored and quite polite. That’s the table fish sauce for adjusting flavor after cooking. And then there’s the liquamen, which is almost ubiquitous in these recipes and seems to function for adding salt. So I look for the funkiest and saltiest fish sauces available. I’ve had good luck with the Squid Brand and Red Boat. Use the salty one with kale!
[if you want to avoid fish sauce, then you can switch to a powdered bouillon (maybe half a cube or less), soup base, or Maggi cube]
Skillet with some onions and kale
Okay, so your onions are getting caramelized around the edges and a little brown. Your patience will be rewarded. Now you can fill your pan with shredded kale (this is about 5 or 6 large leaves) and you can throw in other green herbs (parsley, cilantro, dandelion greens, scallion greens, dill, mint, random foraged edible things) if you want, but I usually just go with kale because if I’m growing it in my garden, then I already have too much of it to get through.
Cook the kale until it just brightens. If you want, you can add a teaspoon or two of water to help it move around, but it should be pretty dry right now. Because as soon as it’s a little cooked, v you’re going to add a teaspoon of fish sauce and a teaspoon of red wine and that with sizzle and steam everything up.
Mix everything together well and then tuck everything toward the middle of the pan with a little divot in the middle to make a nice nest.
Then crack an egg into the middle of the nest, grind some black pepper on top, and cover the pan and let the egg poach in that steam to cook.
A skillet with a silly hat of an aluminum takeout container as a lid.
I’m just a few minutes (it’s okay to peek) the egg will set. The yolk will turn from yellow to a pinkish color and the white might jiggle but it will all be white. If you want the white harder, you can go a little longer, but you risk your yolk solidifying and not being as runny. It’s your egg, so make it the way you like.
The finished dish!
I like to eat this with a bagel and cream cheese. And with a spoon. Enjoy!
So I’ve been self soothing by stocking up on groceries, but then I ended up with too many types of vegetables that require intensive prep in order to turn into food and not enough easy meals.
There’s still three quarters of a kabocha squash, two ears of corn, and some tomatillos to reckon with. But those are for another day.
Today I was gardening and it was very hot and I didn’t really want to cook much. Then I remembered I had lettuce! So this salad is based on one head of romaine lettuce, cleaned and cut up.
Ginormous bowl of the complete salad with even an egg on top
Then I had bought new carrots, but I still had three old carrots. So I pulled those out and sliced them up for pickling (quick pickle with a dried chili and seasoned rice wine vinegar) and the slices that weren’t pretty for cut a little more finely and added to the salad.
Then I pulled out the package of small Persian cucumbers. I really do like them more than other cucumbers and they’ve been pretty cheap recently, but they barely last a week in the refrigerator. So I washed all the ones I haven’t eaten (4) and sliced them. I also got out a red onion and thinly sliced half of one. Most of the slices I pickled separately with red wine vinegar, but I added some to the cucumbers for extra flavor. And then all the parts of the cucumber that were a little soft but still good went into the salad.
I cleaned and finely sliced one scallion and added it to the salad.
I grabbed the third ear of corn and cleaned it. The husks compost better if you slice them across the grain a few times. Then I sliced off about half of the kernels and put them into the salad raw. But that was enough raw corn, and I wasn’t sure how to save half an ear of corn like that. So I took a pat of butter and thinly sliced some of the remaining purple onion and put that to cook while I sliced off the rest of the kernels. My mother would have also taken the back of her knife and scraped it all of the corn milk, too, but I just gnawed on the corn cob while I was working. Anyway, the remaining corn kernels then went into the butter and onion and was cooked until just soft and hot before being added to the salad.
But wait, there’s more!
I’d bought a little of the good mozzarella (good within the category of grocery store mass produced cheese), so I cubed that and added it on top.
And I had some soft boiled eggs, so I peeled one and put it in hot water to both wash off any tiny shell crumbs and to take the chill off.
But then I also decided to cook some leftover thinly sliced (hot pot style) fatty beef that I’d gotten from the Asian market. Instead of thawing and unrolling them, I just put them in the hot skillet as chunks – they still cooked through just fine.
And that was everything… except I had no plan for salad dressing. But I did have a pan with a couple Tablespoons of beef fat that had rendered off, so I thought about the Pennsylvania Dutch bacon fat dressing, and figured I might as well improvise. So I whacked a Tablespoon of Dijon mustard into the hot fat and stirred it around until it started to break down (not my plan, but that was what happened), and then I added some pickle sauce and stirred until it emulsified, and then poured it over the salad. And that worked really well! It had enough salt and brought everything together without feeling fatty.
Another view of the complete salad
Oh, and then I sliced the soft boiled eggs on top, which was really gilding the lily, but eggs don’t last forever.
