Larry, I'll preface my comments by saying I am not at all a canning expert, and I am careful to use and follow safe, tested, approved canning recipes. I never "wing it" and just throw stuff together nor do I use old canning recipes that no longer meet current safety standards. I do not think that the idea of mixing peppers into purchased jelly would be advisable other than if you do it in very small batches that you keep refrigerated and eat within a few days. When we make a pepper jelly from scratch, the canning process makes the jelly safe to eat in several ways. When you are mixining peppers into a purchased jelly, while the jelly itself was safely canned, the peppers were not. Thus, the pathogens that cause potentially deadly diseases like botulism or listeria could grow in your pepper jelly after a few days in the refrigerator. You wouldn't see any visable signs, either, that potentially deadly diseases were lurking in your engineered pepper jelly because they are invisible. What you might see would be the growth of mold in the peppers, just as you would, for example, see mold grow in a jar of homemade jelly that failed to seal properly during the canning process. With the canning process we use when making jellies, one way that the food is preserved safely is that the high heat forces oxygen out of the jars and then the two-piece canning lids form a vacuum seal until opened, which keeps oxygen out. That provides the conditions that help prevent dangerous microorganisms from growing in the jars. In particular, with Habanero Gold jelly, the peppers and onions are first placed in a vinegar mixture which keeps them at a certain pH. That is important because the dangerous microorganisms cannot grow at that pH level. Maintaining exactly the right pH level when canning is very important and, if you added peppers to a previously canned commercial jelly, you don't have that vinegar there serving as the agent to maintain the proper pH. Maintaining the proper pH in the Habanero Gold jelly recipe is one factor that makes it safe. We have to have a specific amount of peppers/onions with a specific amount of vinegar. You cannot put in, for example, twice the hot peppers to make the jelly hotter unless you decrease the amount of sweet peppers in the recipe by the exact amount you increased the hot peppers. That way your total amount of peppers doesn't change so the pepper/onion to vinegar ratio remains as tested and approved. I also wonder this: even if it were safe to mix in chopped peppers into purchased jelly, would you get the same effect? When the pepper jelly ingredients are cooked together, it gives all the flavors a change to merge and blend together. I'm not sure you'd get the same effect from stirring in hot peppers into purchased jelly. By the time the two might have been mixed together long enough for the flavor to blend, then the two likely would be more than a few days old and no longer safe to eat. If you want to hear answers from the expert canners, I'd recommend you go visit the Harvest Forum here at Garden Web and get their answers to your question. The expert canners over there could explain it much more clearly and in much better detail than I did. Carol, I need to make some jelly! The more we talk about it, the more I want to make some. I hope the rainfall and cooler temps quiet things down around here for a while so I can spend more time at home in the kitchen. It rained again last night, almost an inch for us. Too bad it will freeze before the recent rainfall can help the garden produce anything else to can. I have babied about 120 lima bean plants throughout this long hot summer and am just a few days away from harvesting a monster crop. I hope covering up the lima bean plants on the two nights we'll be around 40 degrees will keep the beans maturing on schedule. I'm going to be really cranky if the beans don't get the chance to mature after all the water I poured into their giant container all summer, and after they hung on thru all those hot days and managed to survive until cooler weather arrived. Dawn

Debbie, it's in the 5th post down. AnnT says she used the Tarte au Sucre cake recipe for the dough and the cream cheese filling from the second recipe for the filling. AnnT is a marvelous cook and accomplished baker, I've never gone wrong with one of her recipes and I've been posting on the Cooking Forum for about 20 years along with her. Annie

Best I've had was at Bleu Squid in Mystic Village in Mystic, CT. YUM!!!! My favorite is the The Original Grown-up Grilled Cheese (a mix of Havarti, Fontina, extra sharp Cheddar & Muenster cheeses) you can add tomato, and it's wonderful, but I usually don't. They are also known for their lobster grilled cheese, with chunks of fresh lobster... oohhhhh! I think i need to go there for lunch tomorrow!! I do have to say, I will not turn down Rita's menu. It's my husband's favorite, too... kraft singles, squishy wheat bread, and campbell's tomato soup. I think it's childhood comfort food. Personally, I think sourdough is the best foundation for a good grilled cheese :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Bleu Squid... check the menu tab and drool

Blue: Looking very good. Your banana should be fine. Laurie: Yours is a perfectly sane idea. Garbage cans will definitely work. Heavier duty ones will be better in the long run. In our parts various kinds of plastic 55 gallon barrels are available at around $15-20. This is is the one I use to collect rainwater. Olives are shipped from Greece in these and I can get them at local flea market. Search barrels or rain barrels on craigslist, and inquire at local bakeries, breweries, food processing centers, et. The other available sizes I have seen/used are 15 and 35 gallons. In old days, before rainwater collecting became popular, they used to give it away for free. These are tough barrels. But there are other types too and you can make any of them work. I would look for food grade barrels as the other ones you never know what kind of chemicals were transported in them. Food grade barrels are the ones that exclusively used to transport food/juice etc. Once it has any other substance it loses its food grade status. Otherwise there is no difference in the plastic material, generally speaking. There are a few ways of diverting downspout water, managing overflow and stringing more than barrels together. Youtube has some good videos. If you need more details let me know and I will describe my setup. If you are worried about pollution/bird poop runoff from roof look into "first flow diverter". It is a clever way to reject the first few gallons of rainwater that contains most of the unwanted stuff. I do not have it in my system. The water should remain very clear for months easily as long they are not exposed to direct sunlight. Light encourages algae growth. I am always astonished how crystal clear it remains through the winter and smells fresh.