Where Were They Hiding?

We had the first few hours of wan sunlight in about a week yesterday afternoon. I did some garden cleanup and harvesting. Picked almost 50 pounds of apples. It doesn't look like a good year for our apple tree. This isn't surprising in a year when so many other things were just "off." A great many of our apples are tiny, and many others have large cracks in them while still on the branch. I've never seen either of these things happen before. I may go to Rodale or another organic orchard to pick extra apples for our upcoming cider pressing. I also rounded up the remaining nine pumpkins in various stages of ripening and set them up to dry in what sunlight we had.

The surprise yesterday though was finding so many underripe poblano chili peppers still on the plant. We had a frost about two weeks back which should have killed the plants. Somehow they've held on. Although the peppers mostly haven't matured, and so will lack the characteristic flavor of the poblano, I couldn't bear to leave them out to rot. I got just over two pounds of peppers.

Now I'm pondering what to do with them. I may have to make an evil chili pepper cheese dip and indulge in a large bag of tortilla chips. Perhaps if I include some ancho chili powder it would make up for the lack of flavor from these shiny green chilis. Yes, I have my foodie secret vices, even if they're made from organic ingredients! But if you have other suggestions for a pound or two of chili peppers, I'm all ears.