Home Grown Chillies

Chillies, where we are in Sydney, Australia are perennial as the winters are mild enough to be able to over winter them without them dying. I am still getting chillies from plants I planted from seed 3 years ago and they are probably one of my most productive crop.
I grow several varieties of chilli from the mild yellow chillies that are great stuffed to the fiery Thai birds eye chillies and I have even been successful growing some dangerously hot Scotch Bonnets. NOT for the feint hearted!
At this time of the year we get a glut of chillies and although we like our food hot, we have far too many to use.




We freeze some and the rest I use in chilli pickle and I'll share this recipe with you in my next post.

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Prepared Horseradish

I harvest our horseradish in mid autumn once their leaves have died down.  I normally get about a kilo of horseradish root which easily lasts us for the year and leaves enough to plant for the next year.

Fresh horseradish is incredibly pungent and strong but if you don't prepare it soon after harvesting it looses it's strength and much of its taste.  Preparing it with vinegar and a little salt stops this process and you can then freeze it for use over the year.

You need to be a little careful when preparing horseradish but treat it in the same way as you would chillies and you will be fine.  All you need is:

• Horseradish root
• Some water
• White wine vinegar

Peel your horseradish, chop roughly, then chop in a food processor with a very small amount of water to make a fine paste.  Don't add too much water. Add some white wine vinegar to stabilise the horseradish and you are done.

I then freeze this prepared horseradish in small quantities in freezer bags so I can just snap off however much I need when I want to make horseradish sauce.

So easy.

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