Here is the recipe from Rita Heikenfeld and you can google the recipe and video on the web. I don't have a canning machine and it was very user friendly:) You don't have to chill them unless you want to but they came out fabulous. Here it is: Pickled peppers I donÂt have to tell you that these are the best and easiest pickled peppers you'll ever eat. And if you grow peppers, you know how abundant they are this time of year. Now I usually don't add 2 cups sugar; I'll start out with half a cup, taste the brine, and go from there. If you have extremely hot peppers, though, the 2 cups of sugar is not too much. My sister, Christine, makes a version of these pickles and uses no sugar at all. Sterilizing Jars: Wash jars and lids, then place in big pan, covered with water. Bring to a boil and boil 15 minutes. Keep in hot water until you're ready to fill them. Meanwhile, make brine and prepare peppers: Brine: 6 cups clear vinegar, 5% acidity 2 cups water 1/2 to 2 cups sugar (see note above)* Place brine ingredients in non-reactive pan (that means either stainless, enameled or anodized aluminum, not the old fashioned aluminum pans). Bring to a boil. To Prepare Peppers: Wash. Leave whole with a slit down the center, or cut into slices as desired. I like to remove seeds if I slice them, but this is optional. Remember the membrane that the seeds are attached to is the hottest part of the pepper, and the seeds are the second hottest part. Place peppers in sterilized, hot jars, packing tightly. Pour boiling brine over, covering peppers. Add seasonings, such as garlic, bay leaf, slices of sweet bell, herbs, etc. as desired, or leave plain. Seal and let cool away from drafts. Store away from heat and light. No need to process these as the vinegar, if you use 5%, keeps bacteria out. That's all there is to this wonderful pickled pepper recipe. Making your own is so easy and much more crisp and tasty than the store-bought variety. Chill in refrigerator before serving Dusty

Jasdip, eggplant is wonderful!! Especially roasted. But most Americans way undercook it. It's done when it looks like snot. Literally. If it's white, it's not cooked and likely bitter. People tell you you have to salt it to draw away the bitter but I can't tell the difference. It's sweet if it's cooked, and bitter and nasty if it isn't. If you don't want to go to the mess of charring it over a fire, you can do it under the broiler. Just wash the whole eggplant, poke it all over with a fork to break the skin and let the steam out (you do not want an exploding eggplant), and put it in a pie plate, under the broiler, until it's all sunken in and charry looking. Turn it at least once (more if there's another side that hasn't been up--depends on size and shape). You can use a casserole dish if you don't have a pie plate (I use Pyrex which is dead easy to clean), but the lower the sides the less you have to turn it. Temperature can be from 375-450 depending on your druthers, but I wouldn't go higher with a big eggplant because the outside will get totally charred before the inside is cooked. You can if they're the skinny ones, but then you have to watch them like a hawk. It could take 45-90 minutes depending on the oven, temperature, and size of eggplant. Once it's done, let it cool enough to touch, then slice open, use a spoon to pull out the heaviest groups of seeds, then just scoop the eggplant out, getting all the roasty brown parts. You can make it into a salad or paste, add tehinah for baba ganouj, or just use it straight. The fire version takes a lot more tending, but gives a smokier flavor, even when it's just your gas burner. Poke all over, and keep turning every couple of minutes before the charred spots go black. As you turn the eggplant, the hot side will cool down and can take another go over the flames. This will result in eggplant spit all over your burner, so not the thing to do right after a big, deep clean. You can also do very skinny Asian eggplants, cut into spears, oiled and seasoned (a citrusy flavor works very well, and garlic, for sure), and roast them like you would any other veg. It's a little tricky getting them good and cooked without drying out though. I use a higher sided baking dish for them. Sometimes, a dry, white outside remains when it's thoroughly cooked inside. They're best when the whole white collapses against the skin, looking flat and overdone. That's when they're just right. Can you tell I love eggplant?

--Pastry is a combination of tenderness and flakiness, and those are the baking characteristics you want to achieve when making it. Pastry how to: Mix half of the fat into the flour until it is well incorporated. Add the remaining fat in much larger (pea-size) chunks and only add until distributed, leaving large pieces in the mixture. At this point, don't over-work the dough when adding the liquid. The first addition of fat will tenderize because it coats the flour. Where fat coats the flour, water can't penetrate and the gluten forms in short strands (and is why it's also called "short crust" pastry). The large bits of fat creates flakiness. When the large pieces of fat heat in the oven it releases steam. The steam lifts the dough in layers and as it bakes creates flakiness. Where does lard come in? Lard has a much larger fat crystal than shortening or butter, which makes it work and melt differently. Lard has always made a great fat to use for making pastry. ------------------------------ plllog- Instead of using iodized salt (I haven't used it since the late 70's), I use KELP granules for a low-sodium seasoning and as a food-form source for iodine (see link below), rather than the chemical form found in iodized salt. I also add other sea vegetables when cooking. You might want to save this as a study session at a later date. --I was re-reading Sue Gregg's "Whole Grain Baking" book so I could pull some more information for you, and she uses the same three methods - soaking, fermenting, or sprouting the grain/flour before cooking or baking to neutralize a large portion of the phytic acid. She covers soaking, sprouting and sourdough methods. (suegregg.com) As little as 7-hours will neutralize a large portion of the phytic acid in grains. Twelve to 24 hours even better, with 24 yielding the best results. She also mentions brown rice, buckwheat, and millet are more easily digested because they contain lower amounts of phytates than other grains, so 7-hours soaking is sufficient. Other grains, particularly oats, highest in phytates of the whole grains, are best soaked up to 24-hours. Sue Gregg uses her whole grain bread dough for making pizza and blends 2 c. warm water, 2 T. apple cider vinegar and 4-6 cups whole wheat flour, spelt or Kamut and soaks for 12-24 hrs. for stage one. In her book, "Whole Grain Baking" she gives instructions for sprouting grain and how to make sprouted whole grain dough (pages 154 and 155) and also uses this dough for her pizza crusts. -------------------------------------- --Corn.... Corn comes in three varieties - dent (those fat nibs with a "dent" on the top), which is field and sweet corn), flint (Indian/calico corn) - which is a small grain with a very hard 'coat' - hard like flint and is how it got its name, and popping corn, which looks like flint corn. All corn can be milled into cornmeal - even popcorn. The large nibs of dent corn are...

Most self-rising flours sold in the south have the salt. I find some our here in the west don't. Personally, I prefer it with the salt, but that's probably because it's what I grew up on. And that was not a dumb question at all! (Actually, the only two dumb questions I've ever heard were my sister asking me once "Where do you keep your ice?" and once at the restaurant when a cook had stuck a knife all the way into his hand, one of the managers asked, "Are you hurt?" THOSE were dumb questions. LOL!)