Green Chile Season

This arid desert is not a friendly environment for growing flower gardens or bringing home lush bedding plants from the nursery and expecting them to flourish. But pecans and green chile are abundantly grown and prolific producers here and September is 'fill your deep freeze with chile' season. New Mexico is synonymous with green chile and everywhere you look, there are stands set up for roasting this New Mexico staple.

                         

The canned variety pales in comparison. While our girl was home, she sent out a post letting co-workers know that she was in the green chile capitol if someone wanted her to bring some back. And to say they took her up on her offer was an understatement.

 Yep. That's 7 bushels of roasted green chile in my kitchen. 7 bushels equals 140#. Some folks wanted 1/3. Some wanted 1/2. And some wanted a whole bushel. So we commenced to divvying up the orders and setting the bags of hot green chile on the kitchen counter:

                           

filling the other side:

                            

Continuing onto the island:

                            

And the stove:

                            

And spilling into the laundry room.

                             

The house smelled heavenly. There is a very distinct aroma to good green chile. We let the bags cool before sealing them and loading them into the deep freeze. The next morning we packed them into a humongous cooler and sent our girl on her way to bring green chile happiness to her coworkers.

Now I need to go back for my bushel!