Raspberry Pancake Syrup:
Yesterday I pulled the raspberries out of the freezer that I had been gathering every other day for the past two weeks. They filled an 8 qt pot to overflowing while frozen and once thawed and mashed took up about 3/4 as much space. This was heated slowly for the better part of two hours while I did some much needed weeding and painted the cold frame. The hot raspberry mess was poured into a colander lined with a double layer of cheese cloth and allowed to drip till cool. Last night I stuck the whole contraption in the fridge and let it drip overnight. I ended up with about 12 cups of clear juice.

I used blackberry pancake syrup recipe, keeping the sugar @ 2/3 cup per cup of juice. I ended up canning 8 pints this morning. Most of these will be given away this Christmas.

Hot Poppers:
I love hot poppers aka jalapeno bites. Halved jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese. I grew 8 jalapeno plants this year just to have some to try my hand at making them up and freezing them. Right now I have about 2qts of the halved, seeded peppers soaking in water to mellow them out a little. I scoured the net and found a recipe I am going to tweak a bit and will make them up tonight.

12 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup grated cheddar or jack cheese
25 jalapeno peppers, seeded, cut in half
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1-1/2 cups dried packaged breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tps onion powder

Mix up the cheeses and spoon into jalapenos. Mix garlic and onion powder with bread crumbs. Drop in milk and coat with bread crumbs. Freeze on cookie sheets. Package. To eat, bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until hot all the way through, golden brown, and crisp.

Cold Frame Planting:
The cold frame is painted, situated and half planted. Actually I probably didn’t need to put these things in the cold frame yet as they will all withstand a frost or two. I just wanted to plant something in there.

I dug a bag of manure/compost mix I had laying around into one half of the cold frame (4×4 area) . I sowed some spinach, cherry belle radish, daikon radish, green onions and raab broccoli. The onions as well as the cb radish and spinach were planted in wide rows as we will eat the thinnings. I have yet to make the covers but they really aren’t necessary yet. If anything I may make them and put screen on them to keep bugs out. If this is a typical fall it will be another month before our first frost and even then frosts are generally sporadic till late November. I’ve actually picked broccoli in December with no protection at all but that wasn’t a typical year. Generally “serious winter” takes about 6-8 weeks and usually fills January and February.