Fig Nutrigrain bars, pickled peppers, and greens

I had a happy harvest week. I had some late figs ripen up, which I used to make fig jam. I then used the fig jam to make homemade 'nutrigrain' bars. There are several recipes online for homemade 'nutrigrain' bars. The one I used had whole wheat flour and oats, but it also had 2 sticks of butter and a cup of brown sugar in it. Holy diabetic angina! They were really yummy.

Hasty work shirt harvest.

Here is the method I use for making jam: it is my own.

-wash figs and remove stems
-puree the figs in a blender or food processor
-bring the fig puree to a boil, stirring/whisking constantly
-add a 1/2 part of sugar to the figs (ex 2 cups figs = 1 cup sugar)
-add enough pectin to achieve the desired set ( I always end up using more pectin than recommended; no body likes soupy jam, yuck!)
-bring to a boil
-ladle into a container and put in the fridge

I did not 'can' this batch because there was only enough for my fig 'nutrigrain' bars and a little to give to my mother. Just keep it in the fridge. :)

Fig puree after the sugar has been added.

The peppers just keep on coming. After a season of full out neglect, my peppers still loyally produce loads of fruit for me, the undeserving. I was able to pickle half of these last night. I'll try to finish the rest this evening. I used apple cider vinegar, salt, garlic and peppers. Hubby is going to love these peppers and the spicy juice to put on his greens. OK, he doesn't actually like the greens so I'm guessing he'll want to drown them in pepper sauce, which he does like. :)

Pepperoncini Peppers

Mustard and Turnip Greens: I like to 'sustainably harvest' my greens. Rather than brutally strip the tender parts from the rest of the plant, yanking and wrenching as I go (the traditional method of green picking) I like to use a method I learned on youtube from some fellow named John at growingyourgreens.com. The photo on top is prior to harvest and on bottom is after harvest. You can hardly tell that I removed 1/2 of a grocery bag of greens from the area shown in the photos. I clip 1 or 2 leaves from the outside of the plant. If there is some overcrowding, I may pick a whole plant to allow for more optimal spacing of what remains. When all was said and done, I picked 2 grocery bags full of greens from about 100 ft2. I can come back and pick more greens in a few weeks.

Turnip greens before 'sustainable' harvest.

Turnip greens after 'sustainable' harvest.