We had an awesome onion harvest this year, more than enough for our needs. The big onions are being stored fresh in the basement (I had intended to braid them up all cute like, but it just didn’t happen), for the little onions I decided to try something different.

I had about a half bushel of smaller onions, they had a really good flavor, but I just didn’t want to mess with little onions, to me they aren’t worth the effort to cook with them. BUT, they are still good food and it would wrong to just discard them.

So I decided to was going to dry them. I used dehydrated onions a lot in my cooking. I tend to get a little lazy at times and instead of chopping an onion I will throw a handful of dehydrated onions in soups or ground beef.

I was very simple, I just sliced them about a half inch and threw them in my dehydrator.

I set the dehydrator outside, I didn’t want the smell of onions to fill the house, and boy they were strong smelling too.

It took about twenty four hours and they had dried crisp and beautiful, perfect for throwing into a pot of soup.

They are stored in a gallon size glass jar in my pantry, a simple, easy way of storing and preserving onions.

At the first of the season I was gifted two jalapeño plants.
We aren’t really pepper people, but I figured it would hurt to grow some, and maybe I would get enough to make salsa or chili sauce.  I then bought some regular bell peppers, just in case I could pull the salsa thing off.

Well it didn’t really work, I never got enough tomatoes the same time I got peppers to make it worth whipping up a batch of salsa, when I bottle things I go big, or go home.  If I can’t make a lot, it just isn’t worth it to me.

However, that isn’t always the case for a few specialty items, things I wouldn’t want to have dozens and dozens of jars.  Pepper jelly is one of those specialty items.  I love pepper jelly, but we don’t eat jars at a time, a dozen lasts us well over a year, so a dozen is what I make.

I mixed two recipes from the Ball Canning Books.  I didn’t make a true jelly, because I was way to lazy that day to let the pulp drip for hours to make a clear juice, it is more of a pepper jam.

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I cut and seeded my peppers, using about a two to one ratio, more bell peppers than jalapeño, while I like the kick jalapeños give, I don’t like it to be too hot. 

Pretty green juice, the peppers all ground up ready to add to the cooking pot, along with sugar and pectin. It looks so pretty and green, but has a little bite if you breath too deeply. 

(this is what happens if you get distracted by homeschooling the kiddos and the sugar mixture boils over.  I will say, a glass flat top stove makes cleaning up a mess like that a breeze) Pepper Jelly (jam) all bottled up and ready for cheese and crackers this winter.