I won a bet.

Goats do climb trees.

What was I thinking?

Do not cut up and seed 34 jalapeno peppers with your bare hands.  Ask me how I know.

The Farmer requested jalapeno peppers in the garden.  They are going gangbusters, and he was not eating them.  Pretty soon there were 20 of them on the kitchen counter.  I went out and picked 14 more and there are more out there.  What to do?

Jalapeno jelly uses up a ton of peppers.  Worth a shot.  

If the house was not stinky enough with the puke carpet, you can just imagine how it smelled with both the carpet and the boiling vinegar-pepper solution. 

 

All the recipes I found were really, really similar.  Just pick one.  I used fine mesh strainers instead of cheese cloth to strain it.  It might have been clearer has I used cloth.  Someone suggested shaking it as it cools to disperse the peppers through the jelly.  I tried.  Some jars are better than others.  We made a double recipe and got 4 pints of jelly.  

Now I guess we get to find out if we like jalapeno jelly. 

Phew!

We have the cleanest spot ever on our living room carpet. But, man oh man, does it ever stink.  

Last week I was cooking and there was half a stick of butter sitting on the counter.  When I came down from putting the kid to bed, there was a butter wrapper in the middle of the floor.  Darwin came in, licked it, and looked up at me with those sad eyes.  

The next morning, the smell hit me as a I came down the stairs.  Someone left a pile of puke in the middle of the floor.  We cleaned it with pet stain cleanser, enzyme stuff, Febreze stuff... and so on.  The stain is gone.  The carpet looks great.  But the smell is God-awful.  

Maybe it has been so humid, that it is just damp.  We have a fan on it.  Fingers crossed.

I need ideas.  Either that or I am ripping it out and hoping that the hardwoods underneath are in good condition.

Bruschetta

If your garden is anything like mine, you have tomatoes and basil out the wazoo.  Bruschetta is a great recipe to use them up in a very tasty and quick way.  Put some crusty bread on your grocery list this week.  Mozzarella too.  You already have everything else you need in the kitchen. Really.

I used the recipe from All Recipes.   I think you should too.  1,462 people have rated the recipe and it scores a full 5 stars.  Seems like a sure bet. 

You can learn from my few minor mistakes.  Dice the tomatoes rather than cutting them into chunks.  Put more topping on the bread. More than you think you should.  The broiler will shrink it down.  Make more.  The Farmer and I ate the whole plate for dinner.

Yes, we remembered to set the oven back to "bake."