Somehow I blinked, it's September, and a LOT more chiles are bright red in the field than I was expecting. My mind has been elsewhere as last week we set up our new bean thresher and harvested Tiger's Eye and Southwest Gold beans (good bean content here!). But before we start harvesting chiles, we want to celebrate summer flavors by releasing our 2023 batch of Strawberry & Chile Preserve!
What Makes This Preserve Special
This is the first year we've been able to make strawberry chile preserve with strawberries from our farm! We are lucky enough to have great friends at the Philo Apple Farm, just down the road, who were willing to make weekly batches of this preserve with the berries we harvested every Monday morning.
Cruz diced up the strawberries, added Piment d'Ville, and cooked each batch in a traditional French copper confiture pot. Her jam is looser than other jams as she stirs it only as much as it needs and is characterized by large hunks of strawberries. It's delicious, has the perfect amount of heat to it, and we hope you love it.
What We're Cooking
- I made a big late summer strawberry crisp to share with friends this weekend. I think the key to it being so delicious was a lot of ground ginger and cinnamon in the topping.
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I honestly haven't eaten enough corn this summer and am hoping to fix that this weekend.
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Eric Kim's Rosé Shrimp recipe for New York Times Cooking is on the menu for this week. Can't wait to see how our Piment d'Ville shines in it!
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This recipe from California Grown for a Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip looks delicious and is perfect for the Tri-Tip that's been sitting in our freezer! (Fun fact: Tri-tip was my favorite cut of beef to clean when I worked as a butcher)
- If you are looking for more fun recipe inspiration, I recommend Asha Loupy's newsletter called From Head to Table. It's available via Substack. Asha is a freelance recipe developer and has Basque grandparents. Piment d'Espelette (or our Piment d'Ville!) is a favorite flavor in her life. Last week she featured a recipe for a Tortilla Española with Preserved Lemon-Espelette Aioli!