The reason for the peeling recommendation for many foods is the same - the peel is the primary source of bacteria, fungi and other contaminants. It isn't just pesticides we have to worry about. :) Additional points: in some foods the peels are toughened or turned chewy by the processing, the peels can retard heat penetration to the center of the food in larger food pieces, they can slow flavor and acid penetration too (IE: slices are no problem with peppers but if you don't peel and you can them whole you need to cut slits in them so the brine can get inside). They won't be as crisp as the store bought since they are processed very differently. You can use Pickle Crisp to make them a bit crisper. The frozen ones will be mushy when thawed. Not good for canning plus a waste of energy. Save for use in cooked recipes. Dave

Plenty of ideas, recipes, and uses for all vegetables. It takes a bit of time to read through the many hundreds of threads and posts. Here, I must harvest my cukes every day, or they will not produce. Luckily, I decided early on what vegetables I want to grow, and how many plants of each. A good for instance is broccoli, and leeaf lettuce. Broccoli is now all harvested, except for a few small flowerettes here an there. The leaf lettuce I grew are about 7 dufferent types , all of which have very close naturity dates. I have picked about 25 pounds of it and have given a lot away to friends and neighbors. Because of the success of the letce, I planted more seeds in the beginning of July, these are just now showing several leaves. For squash, none ths year, but my favorite is butterup types. Things like crooked neck summer squash are good too, but if I plant them, there would only be a few, so I am not overwhelmed. I did post an note about making cucumber sandwiches, and I am sure the kids would love these on a hot summer day. You have lucked out and have been fortunate enough to get produce that would definately save you money later on. As payback to the generous people, I must assume that your going to give them some of your home canned items, or other things. If you can't pick yourself, maybe a pick your own by the customer would help. My apples are just now starting to ripen and, I do plan to make something out of them, when the weather is cool enough, I also have garage sales, which help to reduce my over abundence. Because I do can, some of the older canned items are also offered in my sales. Most are simply tomato sauce and pickles.

Are you still open to one more joiner? I've never done a swap before so I'll need lots of advice, but I have thyme and creeping thyme and daylilies that desperately need divided (though I have no idea what their names are and I had no idea they were edible!) and I'm starting some lavenders from seed this year (the ones from last year are already larger than the 6" pots from the nurseries)

Oh, dear! I didn't mean to imply you were really going to poison him! I was just responding to what Mimipadv said about "just don't tell anyone". An anchovy added to flavor a dish might not even give me a reaction, but the worst reaction I've had was to a non-fish dish cooked with fish stock, where all the bad is concentrated. No one told me about the fish. It was just short of life threatening. Though since you know, Bbstx, that it's finickiness, you might be able to hide the prunes. After all, garlic prunes, are vastly superior to garden variety prunes. :) I don't like either prunes or olives, and capers aren't high on my delish list, but I love chicken marbella. :) Littleonefb, have you figured out what you're going to do?