Well, as we all know, fall is an insane time of year.  After Halloween, my days turn into minutes and before I know it, it’s the New Year.  I have spent the last few weeks baking and preserving and doing all THAT.  I decided a few weeks ago to finally clean out our deep freeze and actually do something with the many bags of juice and tomatoes that I had.  So, with the blackberry juice and the blueberry juice, I made some jelly.  This time around, I used a new type of pectin:

I think that maybe I just bought it because I loved the box.  Seriously, I wanted a low-sugar pectin and had read about this type (low-methoxyl).  It’s very easy to use and causes your jelly to set up rather quickly.  In fact, it gels so well that I should have reduced the amount of pectin called for, since it made my jelly have a ‘jelled cranberry sauce’ consistency.  Anyway, the results were delicious, so who cares?

Here’s the jelly coming to a boil.  I love that color.  Sigh.

Then, a few weeks before that, we had our first ‘freeze’.  Hahaha.  Joke’s on me.  It didn’t really freeze, but since I thought it was going to, I harvested all of my peppers:

As you can see, it was quite a bit.  We were in a hurry, so we threw it all on a tablecloth in my kitchen.  Next came a few hours of chopping and freezing.  Anyway, I’m gonna brag about my peppers here since I have never really grown any great bell peppers.  This year was different.  I got my best peppers in September and October (they were planted in April). Best variety this year?  “Jupiter”, hands down.  I plan on planting lots of those next year!

My biggest bell, a Jupiter:

Trust me, it was a biiig pepper,  even if it was only 4 inches.  Oh well.  I won’t make any lewd jokes here.  So, what are the secrets of growing good bells?  Picking a good variety, fertile soil, and keeping them well-watered.  Not WET, mind you, but in high summer when the leaves droop a bit, your butt had better be out there giving them some water.  Otherwise, the walls of your peppers will be paper thin and pathetic.  You know, like mine were last year.  Moving on…

Mmmmmmm.  Cinnamon rolls.  Who doesn’t love fresh rolls?  I made so many a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t want to look at another roll, or even eat one.  For a great recipe, you can go to Allrecipes, and search for ‘Clone of a Cinnabon‘.  I used the icing from that recipe, but for the actual bread, I used their ‘Sweet Dinner Roll‘ recipe.  Why?  Well, I found that the Sweet Dinner Roll recipe is extremely easy to do and also extremely versatile.  Plus, I memorized it.  And maybe to a lesser degree, I was offended that the ‘Clone’ recipe calls for MARGARINE.  That’s like a slap in the face. Sure, sure, I know I could substitute butter, but….

Mmmmm.

Well, so that’s what I have been up to.  That and the winter garden.  But I don’t have any pics for you of that, so it will have to wait.

Now, I will leave you with a picture of my faaaaavorite cornbread…my Mamaw’s recipe. I’ll have to add it to my blog so you can experience it, too.  I love ‘cakey’ cornbread with a little bit of sweet.  I don’t like cornbread that you have to swallow an entire glass of tea with because it’s so dry.