Tag Archives: peppers

🌱 Round 2? | Garden 3 : Slugs 0

Posted on by Standard Reply

Die, slugs! Die! Recently I had an issue with what appears to be slugs going to town on the bean & pepper plants in my vegetable garden. It has been rather wet lately. It certainly could be other nefarious garden pests, but I may have a prejudice for these creepy little mollusks thanks to my shellfish & mollusk food allergies.

In with the shellfish thing, I’m weird about diatomaceous earth. It; seems like breathing it in can be sus, and it can be harmful to bees. I have crushed up some egg shells and strewn them about, but I’m not certain how effective that is. I try to always rinse them well & add to my compost anyway.

I decided to make some slug traps out of stuff from the recycling bin & a PBR. It was weird to buy 1 can of beer. I rarely drink any more & didn’t need a case or a 6-pack. I did finish off what was left of the 24 oz. can after I baited the traps though.

Slug Traps made from garbage and baited with beer.
🚫🐌

I used two empty sour cream tubs, an empty cottage cheese tub, an iced tea jug, & a coffee container. We are perpetually excepting rain, so that’s why I made the covers. I made the cuts very quicky & very sloppy with my pocketknife because I’m impatient at times and of course decided to do this as the sun was going down.

I probably should anchor the covers somehow… but they have not blown away yet.

This morning, I counted 3 slugs overcome by a compulsion to consume delicious fermented hops.

Can you find the 3 dead slugs?
Can you find the 3 dead slugs now?

So, there you have it. Something that works. Unlike the supposed magical marigold repellant.

Pour one out for the dead slugs, and drink to their memory as you listen to my Beer 🍻 playlist. Or, if you wanna get crazy, I have a Pabst Blue Ribbon 🥇 playlist. Why are there so many songs that name drop PBR? All I can think of that mentions Yuengling is Nerf Herder’s “New Jersey Girl.” Do any songs mention Straub?

What has proven to work well for you to repel garden pests? I have a small garden this year. I do like to keep the pollinators happy, and the birds n’ squirrels too.

AiXeLsyD13's Vegetable Garden 2025
Pollinator Flowers Around the Yard
Pollinators around the yard this summer.
AiXeLsyD13's Garden 2025
The 2025 garden the day it went in.
Slug Damage
Leaf damage from those damn slugs.

🍻🐌🍻

Teriyaki Stuff

Posted on by Standard 2

I absolutely love the flavors in Asian food, but because of my shellfish allergy, I rarely dine at those types of restaurants because of ingredients like oyster sauce or brine shrimp as seasoning and cross contamination. I even had friends that once ordered “vegetarian” egg rolls that contained crab meat. I think it was a perfect storm of a language issue and a culture issue.

I posted this photo of a dish we make often on social media, and was asked for the recipe. I figured I would share it here too! It’s more of a method maybe than an exact recipe. My wife usually makes it with chicken instead of beef and without the chick peas.

  1. Made 4 cups  of instant rice according to the box, instead of salt in the water I used 1 teaspoon of beef bullion, set aside.
  2. Sear the steaks on high on a flat pan that can go into the oven – coat w/ EVOO, salt & pepper… about 2 minutes a side.
  3. Place a pat of butter on each steak, place in oven at 400° for about 10 minutes.
  4. Cook the chick peas in a bit of EVOO, maybe medium-high heat.  You need to keep an eye on them as they can “pop.”
  5. Add the Teriyaki sauce to the pan and let it cook, maybe take it down to medium.  I keep stirring & scraping the bottom of the pan.
  6. Get the water boiling for under a steamer basket.  I usually add onion powder and garlic powder.
  7. Take out the steaks and let them rest on a cutting board.
  8. Steam the vegetables above the boiling water once it starts to go… I usually wait for them to turn a bright color then turn it off as I like them still to be a bit crunchy.  Carrots on bottom, broccoli in the middle, peppers on top seems to make the cook the most evenly.
  9. Cut the steaks into strips, I try to go on an angle so they’re nice & tender.
  10. Add the steak to the chick peas & Teriyaki… don’t overcook the steak.  It should still be a little pink in the middle when you add it.
  11. Fluff the rice.
  12. I use garlic powder, onion powder, season all, Mrs. Dash, salt, & pepper throughout on everything.
  13. Plate the rice, veggies, beef/chickpeas/sauce and enjoy!

It all sounds much more complicated than it is.  You can cook he steaks on a countertop grill or cut them into strips & cook in the pan… but I tend to overcook them that way. You could, of course, also use the marinade as an actual marinade.

You could just boil the veggies too, but I feel like that takes out all the flavor and turns them to mush.  Roasting them in the oven may be delicious too, but would take a bit longer… this would be good for the chickpeas too.

If I had a wok, I’d get brave and try it all like a stir-fry. Maybe like the “white people tacos” meme, this is my version of Asian food.

I’d be interested to see what other people think if you try it out. I’d like if you shared your meals like this in the comments, so I have more stuff to try.

I am stuck on this type of La Choy Teriyaki sauce & marinade. The flavor is perfect. The “stir fry sauce” has sesame seeds in it, & I’m not a fan of the texture and hate to tempt fate with diverticulitis issues. The other ones are just OK. What’s your favorite type? Have you ever made your own?

According to Wikipedia, it seems like Teriyaki is similar to Barbecue as it seems to refer to a style of cooking as well as the sauce. Maybe I am wildly misusing the term? I just like the sauce. A lot.

It has been increasingly difficult to find. I have tweeted (𝕏eeted?) Conagra and I think they are stalling. I’m going to have to have a maze-fueled letter & email wiring campaign. I was told the sauce was discontinued by a local distributor to Giant Eagle in 2009, but have definitely found it since then. The current La Choy website doesn’t list it as a product, but the Internet Wayback Machine has it.



Cooking Stuff From the Garden 🌶🥒

Posted on by Standard Reply

So, today I felt like cooking. We recently came back from a weekend at a cabin and a week at camp. We had a bunch of new stuff ready in the garden, and some stuff past ready.

Here are three quick recipes that I posted on Instagram. The Poblano peppers, banana peppers, straightneck squash, and snap beans were grown in our garden.

Garden Goodies

🥓🧀🌶🍄🍝🥒🌱

Bacon-Wrapped Poblano Peppers

Well, that turned out well. Got some poblano from the garden this week. I mixed some bacon bits, minced garlic, shredded cheddar cheese, and steak seasoning into some cream cheese, cut the peppers in half, stuffed with the peppers with the mixture, sprinkled more cheddar on top, wrapped with bacon, & baked on a sheet pan at 375° for 40 min.

Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

Snap Beans with Mushrooms & French Fried Onions

Some fresh snap beans from the garden. Steamed, then tossed in with some sautéed mushrooms, French fried onions, minced garlic, a pinch or 2 of flour & fresh cooked bacon pieces. (Used the leftovers from the peppers.)

Straightneck Squash Parmesan

Had some straightneck squash that grew a bit too big while we were at camp. I had it in my head to prepare it sort of like eggplant parmesean & fried zucchini. I didn’t want the stacked lasagna version, I wanted something with a bit of crunch.

I sliced then up, dredged in flour/cornstarch, egg/buttermilk. & coated in regular & panko breadcrumbs with a bit of parmesan “shake cheese” mixed in. I seasoned each step with Italian seasoning, garlic powder, & black pepper.

I baked them for about 25 or 30 min. on 400°, then topped with provolone & mozzarella slices & a bit more parmesan. They went back in for 10 min.

Served with bowtie pasta & covered in our favorite slightly doctored sauce.

Added the needed flavor to the overgrown squash and I actually preferred the consistency to eggplant.

🥒🧀🌶🥓🧄🍄🌱🍝

All in all, I was really pleased with the results, and I think the family was too.

Do you have some good recipes, tips, & tricks for these garden ingredients?

What do you like to grow and cook?

Vegetable Garden 2021 🌱 II: The Wrath of Fawn

Posted on by Standard Reply

Damn deer ate my tomatoes.

Think they’ll come back from this, or is it just best to replace?

Also, we planted some swiss chard from my daughter’s school science class, some snap beans, some yellow onions, and garlic. We also had 1 volunteer squash pop up in the yard, and 4 back by the compost pile. Not really sure what they are. I have had some WEIRD hybrid stuff in the past. When you grow multiple varieties they can cross-pollinate and the seeds can make some wacky stuff. They could be that wacky stuff or just pumpkins, butternut squash, acorn squash or zucchini.

Gorillas in the Mint

Check out the original blog from this year for a nice embedded chart.

Revised Garden Map & Harvest Dates:

Follow my instagram for all the latest stuff, and some other plants around the yard.

Vegetable Garden 2021 🌱

Posted on by Standard 1

This year, I had some big help in the garden! These two have been gardening since they could walk, and I think they’re enjoying it and really getting the hang of it.

The kids have their own YouTube channel now, with a little hep from some old guy that blogs occasionally. Check out their gardening how-to:

I also made a map, and decided to make a chart of the suggested harvest dates on the tags just to see how accurate they are. I have been gardening since I can remember, and don’t know if I ever paid attention to that. We just picked stuff whenever it appeared & ripened.

Garden Map & Harvest Dates 2021

We made sure to get all the tags & try to document it all. The kids are loving math & science, so why not incorporate it into the garden? We can see if the harvest dates noted on the tags are anywhere near when the plants are actually ready.

I’m excited to see how it turns out! And, yeah, we got some more jalapeño since they liked it last year… and this time we’re trying some poblano too!

Whoa, Instagram is a trip down memory lane with these kids and gardening!

Kids, Gardening, & Jalapeños. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦🌱🌶️

Posted on by Standard 1

The kids like to garden. They helped plant once again this year, and have been great at watering, upkeep, & harvesting. They really did most of the planting work this year, and are learning about how to keep weeds out and when to pick ripe peppers. (They’re already pretty good at tomatoes.)

Molly & Ian try a jalapeño from the garden! 🌶️

This year, by accident, I picked up a jalapeño plant when shopping at Home Depot. I meant to get 2 each of yellow bell peppers, orange bell peppers, and red bell peppers. I came home with a jalapeno and only one yellow pepper. We also planted some sweet banana peppers.

When I brought it home, Ian was determined to plant it & try some. He was true to his word! Molly & Ian did both try it! I put the video up on YouTube and IGTV.

Decide for yourself if you think they liked it:

I haven’t ever grown hot peppers despite all my years growing tomato, pepper, & a slew of other stuff.

I asked on various social media platforms on how to tell if your jalapeno is ripe and I got a handful of differentiating opinions. I got…

  • When they turn red. (Was told they turn black before they are red.)
  • When they start to get little brown lines/wrinkles.
  • At around 3″ long.
  • At around 6″ to 8″ long.
  • Look at the photo on the plant tag.
  • bury match heads to make them hotter.

So, how do you tell when they’re ripe?


Share your hot pepper ripeness tips & any other tricks below on the comments.

Have an recipes to share too?  I would like to hear your thoughts on gardening, jalapeno peppers, or the video below!

This has been a fun gardening journey.  It is exciting to see them learn about composting, growing food, and then trying it & even cooking with it.  We have had plenty of beautiful snap beans, sweet banana peppers, & a few varieties of cherry tomatoes so far.

How yinz make your chili? 🌶 [Chili à la AiXeLsyD “Recipes”] 🌶

Posted on by Standard 33

Yinz like chili?  I do.  I haven’t made any for a long time.  I may need to change that.  I stole this (& modified it) from my never-used Cookpendium blog.  My writing has hopefully improved since then.  Maybe not.  I like a tamer chili that would appeal to a wide variety of people to add heat as they like.  I like it thick enough to make a spoon stand.  I can take or leave the beans, and I reject your debatable elitist visions of chili or what it ought to be.

I ought to try and make a new batch using only stuff I buy at Aldi.

How do you make yours?

[Originally from a post at (the now defunct) PittsburghBeat.com, here’s a few consolidated chili recipe/methods…]

Recipe 1:

I’ve never made chili before, and in researching, I came across 50 billion recipes. So, this morning I made my own in the crock pot…

  • 2 cans of condensed tomato soup
  • 1 can of tomato paste
  • 1 packet of chili mix
  • about ½ cup of water
  • 1 tsp. of beef bullion
  • 1 can light red kidney beans
  • however much ground meat was leftover from last night
  • 1 tsp. cumin
  • 1 tsp. black pepper
  • a dash of cayenne pepper
  • a dash of paprika
  • a dash of garlic

…and I slapped it into the crock pot on low for 8 hours.

Hope it tastes good when I get home. I’ve got shredded cheddar cheese for the top of it, & Super-Pretzels to go along with it. They always served pretzels & chili in my elementary school cafeteria so they belong together in my warped mind.

Most of them use tomato paste, soup, sauce, juice, or diced tomatoes as a base… I even saw one that called for Spicy hot V8… and I think my mom always used soup. Tomato paste is usually bitter, so I figured the tomato soup would counteract it. All of the spices should be rockin’. I like my chili thick.

Oh yeah, about 1/2 the ground meat was cooked w/ some seasoning salt & A1.

Recipe 2:

Here’s what basically went into my chili. I’ll probably eventually make a blog about it with a narrative so I can remember what I did this time for next time… to see what I wanna change or what I wanna do again.

I ended up only using the one can of diced tomatoes (the one with jalapeños) and still kind’ve overflowed the pot by a small amount. So, next time I may cut out one can of tomato soup or a can of beans. Also, I want to try garbanzo beans in my next batch… and I’ve heard chocolate powder goes good in chili some times… so I wanna try that one day too.

I also tossed in 2 slices of Velveeta ripped apart, a dash of spicy brown mustard, and a drop or 2 of A1 Cracked Peppercorn Steak Sauce.

I think the meat that I used was too fatty or I didn’t drain enough fat (…even though I got a about ⅔ of a regular sized plastic cup full of fat out of it). I had to skim some excess grease off of the top when I popped it open this morning.

I’ll let you know the general consensus after it’s been consumed.

[Edit:  It was good.]

Recipe 3:

I must have pinned this at some point, too.  Someone re-pinned it here…

I think it was a joke about Pepto because this chili killed my guts, even served over mashed potatoes.

Share your chili recipes with me in the comment section below.  Don’t be a jag and sit on your secret ingredient(s).  Is it cocoa powder?  Chocolate bars?  Corn?  Zucchini?  Cinnamon?  Potatoes?  Steak?  Instant potato flakes?  Cornmeal?  Chupacabra?

How do you serve it?  In a bowl?  Over baked or mashed potatoes, rice,or spaghetti?  With soft pretzels or cornbread?  With tortilla chips or crackers?

How do you cook it?  Crock pot?  Dutch oven?  Stove top?  Over a campfire?

Do you like the Hormel canned stuff or the stuff from Wendy’s?  Who makes your favorite?

Spill it!

We finally hung the sign on our #BeanHouse. 🌱

Posted on by Standard 3

Did you read about our #BeanHouse?

I was able to get some matte clear-coat spray this week and hit the sign a few times, although this stuff seemed to soak up the paint like a sponge.  We just used some particleboard from an old dresser drawer.  It was the perfect size.  I did the marker & colored the beans, the rest was all Molly.

Molly also got a tomato plant  from her Grandma BB, so we planted it right out front.  We tried the fork trick there too to deter bunnies, but if I remember right they’re not huge fans of tomatoes.  You never know what else is out & around either.

We also put out some organic bloodmeal to provide nutrients and hopefully deter critters.   Molly reminded me to put down grass clippings because they hold moisture.

I was thinking about putting out some cinnamon to keep the rabbits away too.  I just saw that coffee grounds keep away snails.  Do you have any other tips & tricks that seem to have worked for you in the past?  We did use garlic clips last year.  They seemed to work, but we did have a few incidents of snacking on our peppers.

No beans sprouting yet, but our Spanish onions just popped from seeds we planted a while ago.

#BeanHouse Sign & Tomato 🌱

Nine Can Vegetable Soup

Posted on by Standard 12

This is an incredibly easy & delicious dinner or lunch.

Well, the name’s misleading.  Sometimes it’s not exactly nine cans.  I’ll give you the recipe as it was given to me…

Nine Can Vegetable Soup

  • 2 cans Hormel chili, any variety
  • 1 can vegetable soup
  • 1 can green beans
  • 1 can sliced new potatoes
  • 1 can mixed vegetables
  • 1 can corn
  • 2 cans diced tomatoes (for extra kick, use a can of tomatoes with green chiles in place of one can of diced tomatoes).

Optional: 1lb ground meat*

Dump the entire contents of every can into the crockpot – liquid and

all.

*Brown turkey or beef and drain and add to veggies in crockpot. Heat on low all day, or on high for less than 2 hours.

Well, sometimes I do it like this…

  1. Hormel Chili with Beans
  2. Hormel Chili with No Beans
  3. Campbell’s Beef With Barley & Vegetables Soup
  4. Campbell’s Vegetable Beef Soup
  5. Cut Green & Wax Beans
  6. Diced New Potatoes
  7. Succotash (Corn & Lima Beans)
  8. Mixed Vegetables with Potatoes
  9. Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic, & Oregano
  10. Petit Diced Tomatoes

Nine Can Vegetable Soup

I didn’t take this picture, or make this soup. This is pretty much what it looks like though. (athomewithkim.com)

Sometimes I add other stuff.  I think I’ve put in Garbanzo Beans, Mexicorn, or

the diced tomatoes with jalapeño or chili peppers, and even plain old navy or black beans.  Sometimes I dump some of the liquid of the cans out.  I like thick soup.

I’ve used ground beef & ground turkey… both work really well.  I’m sure a vegetarian version of this would be easy to make. (Hormel makes a vegetarian chili, you can get vegetarian vegetable soup from Campbell’s, & the ground tofu, seitan, or tempeh would work well… or you could just add more beans or vegetables.)

I just put it into the crock pot on low all day.  Dinner’s ready when you get home!

I like to have it with homemade bread, or over biscuits like a pot pie.  If you’re camping and have a mountain pie iron or if you have en electric sandwich maker that seals the edges you can add some flour to thicken it up or strain it a little to make incredible filling.

I also like the tiny saltine crackers.

A any rate, we make some & it lasts a while… as a main dish, or a side with sandwiches.  It freezes & re-heats easily.

Do you make something like this?

What are some good soup recipes or easy crock-pot recipes?

Related Articles

So, Pepto-Chili may not be a good idea…

Posted on by Standard 6

pepto

Pepto!

Made some chili the other day.  I don’t think I’ve ever made it the same twice, but I dig that.  This time, I puréed some fresh & roasted peppers, and added hominy.  Next time, I’ll try less tomato stuff.  Maybe less spices.

This batch caused some absolutely ridiculous gastrointestinal distress.  I had to employ both Vernor’s & Pepto.  Serving leftovers over some creamy buttermilk mashed potatoes helped a little, but not much.

http://twitter.com/#!/AiXeLsyD13/status/129282429755199488

http://twitter.com/#!/Pepto/status/129283865704542208

http://twitter.com/#!/AiXeLsyD13/status/129542926496829441

Chili à la AiXeLsyD over mashed potatoes... topped with shredded triple cheddar.

Chili à la AiXeLsyD over mashed potatoes... topped with shredded triple cheddar.

Anyone ever use anything in your chili to cut down on heartburn or any other side-effects?  I rinsed the beans (black & kidney here).  My grandma said baking soda may help, but I think that’s for gas from the other end.

Classic Vernor's logo with "Woody", ...

Vernor's Ginger Soda

I think the peppers or spices are what got me here… maybe the garlic.  I burped so much after drinking a little Vernor’s that I actually amazed myself.  Where did all that air come from?  Surely some spectacular chemical reactions where going on inside my stomach.  SCIENCE!

Can;t wait for that coal-black Pepto poop.

Think Vernor’s would be a good ingredient in the chili?  What about Pepto?  How about some Tums?

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