Spicy and Sweet

This morning I braved that Korean supermegamarket for the red pepper I needed to make my kimchi.  I needed four things when I went in there:  ginger, scallions, onions, and the red pepper powder.  I came out with four bags of groceries, and considered myself lucky!

For the kimchi, the cabbage was soaked in a brine last night and drained today, reserving the brine.  Then I mixed the cabbage with minced garlic, slivered scallions, a little sugar and salt, and the red pepper powder.  This was packed into a half-gallon jar and the brine poured over it, with the rest of the brine in a bag stuffed in the top.  Set aside to ferment, it claims it'll be ready in 3-6 days.

This afternoon I got to work on all those peppers.  I made a full batch of sweet pepper relish from The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving, but used light green and dark green peppers rather than red and green.  Sadly, when they cook the greens converge into one dull olive color, much less festive than the last batch.  At the same time I made a half batch in which I threw all the hot peppers from the farm:  jalapeños, one tiny poblano, and 5 long evil-looking peppers which I think might be Thai hot peppers.  The final result is 3 pints of the sweet pepper relish and 3 cups of the spicy one, with 2 of those jars being the little 4 ounce ones which adds to my gift stash.