The destinations
Each one lists what it actually yields, what pH it lands at, whether the process is tested for shelf storage, and exactly which plants you need in the ground months earlier. Pick one and the Plan Builder works backwards to your sowing date.
New guide · grow it, then make itMustard from seed to jarGrow cool-season mustard, save the seed, and make three refrigerator mustards with exact weights.Read the field guide →
Four cups of basil, a mortar if you have the patience, and nothing that turns black by dinner. Freezes for a year; cannot be canned, ever.
Twelve pounds of paste tomatoes, three hours, and a food mill instead of a peeling job. The reduction that makes a homegrown tomato taste like the reason you grew it.
Twenty-four pounds of Roma reduced by half with cider vinegar, clove, allspice and celery seed. Darker, spicier and less sweet than the bottle, and it's a tested water-bath process.
A sharp, coarse refrigerator mustard built from yellow and brown seed, 5% vinegar, and the mustard you can grow for leaves and seed.
Charred red peppers, toasted almonds, bread and sherry vinegar. Catalonia's answer to pesto, and the best possible use for a glut of sweet peppers.
Seven quarts of chopped Roma, peppers, onion and bottled lime juice, simmered thick and processed 15 minutes. The tested paste-tomato salsa, with the garden sized to grow every ingredient in it.
Red jalapeños, eight hours of cold smoke, then a braise in a dark ancho-and-vinegar sauce. The single most useful jar in a kitchen.
Red jalapeños and a whole head of garlic, fermented as a 2.5% salt mash for a week, then blended with vinegar and a little sugar and simmered thick. Homemade sriracha that tastes like chile first and garlic second.
Blistered tomatillos, serrano, and a fistful of cilantro. Naturally acidic, ready in forty minutes, and it clings to a taco because tomatillos bring their own pectin.
Dried cayenne softened in hot water, a charred sweet Marconi for body, toasted coriander, cumin and caraway, garlic, lemon and olive oil. The North African chile paste, made from two pepper plants you already grow.
Make green zhoug (s'hug, schug or zhug) with cilantro, serrano peppers, garlic, and toasted spices. A fresh Yemeni sauce, with growing and refrigerator-storage guidance.
Three ingredients — cayenne, salt, vinegar — and four weeks of patience. The thin, sharp, pourable hot sauce that goes on everything and gets better in the bottle.
Fermented habanero and carrot make a sharp, full-bodied refrigerator sauce. For a shelf-stable hot sauce, use the separate NCHFP-tested tomato and serrano recipe.
