Hot Pepper Relish

Today, I made hot pepper jelly.  This is a favorite of ours.  We serve it with cream cheese and Ritz crackers.  When I take it to church on Sunday night, it goes super fast.  I did not have enough hot peppers to make it but the pastor’s wife gave me enough.  I have been so blessed this year.  Even though our garden did not do as well as I would have liked, others have given us so much.  Anyway, the recipe I use is on the sure-jell  recipe instruction pamphlet.  I guess the only different thing I do is that I put the pepper mixture into the blender and pulse  instead of trying to chop them up finely.  I’m lazy that way.  I always put the hot pepper jelly in half pint jars.  I did not have enough empty ones so I bought a dozen yesterday at Wal-Mart.  I think they are soooo cute, don’t you?  The lids came with them. 

Saturday, we did go with the Horn’s to Paint Bank.  However, I forgot the camera.   For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, this probably does not come as a surprise.  What might surprise you though, is that Vicki forgot their camera too.  We did take a few pictures with the phone but I am not sure how to get them off.  Well, anyway, we went to the fish hatchery, to the general store, ate lunch at the Swinging Bridge Restaurant (which was way over priced in our opinion), saw the buffalo, and walked around some at the campground.    It was such a fun day.

Yesterday, we went to Sam’s.  It rained off and on all day and then in the evening the heavy rains came.  We have probably gotten over 5 inches.  Our power was off for about 5 hours.  We lit some candles and went out to the glassed in front porch.  Hubby played guitar for us and we told the girls stories of when we were young.  It was fun.   We are still getting heavy rain in spurts.  We really needed rain-just not the whole years worth in one day. 

I also wanted to share this soup recipe with you all.  Our local supermarket sells a 15 bean soup mixture.   They have it with the dried beans. The brand they carry is  http://www.hurstbeans.com/.  I follow the instructions on the back of the bag (kinda).  Well, I did cook the beans like it said.  I added kielbasa sausage to it and a can of my homemade salsa.  I used a qt of our fresh canned tomatoes.  I then added some potatoes, corn, peas, and spinach to it.  It is a really good hearty soup and fairly inexpensive.    It is really good without adding the veggies.  Either way you like it.  I have made it with hamburger, ground turkey, whatever I have on hand.  It is also good without any meat but Hubby is a meat eater.   We serve it with hot cornbread. YUM!  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I do not use the ham powder base that comes inside the bag of beans.  Just my personal preference.

I hope you all have a great evening and God bless.