Carol, Annie and anyone else working with weights... I just made and processed two Big Batches of HG. I kept them separate from the beginning. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to evenly distribute the bits if I started in one big pot and tried to divide them on Day 2. I did weigh everything several times and here is what I came up with for one Big Batch recipe: 170 g minced dried apricots (1/8" dice) 200 g total of minced red sweet pepper and minced red onion (1/8" dice), approximately half-and-half. 30 g Habanero peppers Note: For extra-hot, increase Habaneros to 60 g and reduce red sweet pepper/red onion combination to 150 g total. 360 g white vinegar 1.2 kg (1200g) sugar 1 3-oz. pouch liquid pectin When I look at the ingredients as a formula, the percentages using weights are a little off from the percentages using the cup measurements. Shouldn't they be the same? I what I have okay? How should I evaluate whether my weights are okay? Now that I've got the calculations set up, should I "tinker" around with the grams to force the percentages to be the same as those using cups? Thanks!!

I'm guessing wildlife IS eating up that fruit. FWIW, my Master Gardener aunt played a trick on us once when we were visiting her in WI; we came upon some wild grapes while touring a local park & started to pick the fruit, while she hung back & watched - those grapes were so sour! She laughed & explained that was why they were still on the vine.

Wolflover. It is so wonderful to see you here! I know you're there, but you don't post as often as you used to and I miss you when you aren't posting. That was an important pepper tidbit I learned shortly after moving here, and I did find, too, that not letting the plants be exposed to cold temps below 50 degrees did make a huge difference in how well/how early they produce. I wish I'd learned it 10 or 15 years earlier. My peppers are a lot more pampered...carried in and out just like yours...but they don't seem to mind being planted later. Even though I plant them about a month later than I used to, they produce earlier than they used to. Seems odd, doesn't it, but I'll keep doing it since it works. I haven't tried Aji Dulce. I'll have to put it on my list. The habaneros I grow are for DH and his friends. I barely survive inhaling the fumes when I'm cutting them up, and I don't eat them at all except in pepper jellies. Aji Dulce probably would be just right for a 'pepper wimp' like me. You've made a lot more salsa than I have, but I've been bogged down in fruit. Now that the fruit is over, I can spend more time on peppers, pepper jellies and salsa. I canned about 85 jars of salsa last year and it wasn't enough, so I'm shooting for 120-130 this year. I still have a long way to go to reach that goal though. Adellabedella, I can see why several glasses of milk and lots of bread would be required. I grew a yellow habanero type pepper called 'Fatali' (beware any pepper with the word fatal as part of its name) for several years and thought all our friends knew it was really, really, really hot. DH gave some Fatali peppers to a coworker who took them home. Before he could even warn his wife "Watch out, they're really hot", she'd taken one out of the bag and popped it into her mouth. It made blisters in her mouth. Blisters! She could laught about it later, but she was in all kinds of misery at the time. She thought it was one of those sweet squash peppers or mushroom peppers and never dreamed it was a habanero type. Dawn

I'm a lurker (normally found at the Kitchen Table) but I'll chime in here since making my own mixes is something I do, too. I prefer my own cornbread recipe to any mix I've found, so I make my own. I do it in batches. I mix/sift my cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, baking soda (and mark it for buttermilk) in a large bowl. I then pour that one batch in a zip-lock bag. Then I mix the next batch. I'll mix up 6-8 batches, each one separately, and then put the bags in my baking cupboard. I don't mix them all at the same time because, like you pointed out, the lighter ingredients might settle out of the heavier ones. With my mixes each bag is complete for one pan of cornbread. When I want cornbread I pour the contents of one zip-lock bag in my bowl, beat in the eggs and buttermilk, melt the oil in the skillet, add it to the batter and it's all good. I like using equal amounts of cornmeal and flour (1 cup each) or 1-1/4 cups cornmeal to 3/4 cups flour, and very little sugar. I also like to use two eggs; I like eggy bread.