Scorch Your Taste Buds

I'll be honest: my long weekend saw me out in the garden on Saturday as the vegetables were abundant. I decided to expand my hot pepper roster this year after some excellent success with jalapeno peppers last year, and I was out picking Tabasco peppers, Hungarian hot wax peppers, dragon's breath peppers, and dragon's claw peppers along with my standard jalapeno peppers. In amassing enough to fill two large freezer bags, I needed something to do with them. Yes, I know they can be frozen, but I wanted to use them as soon as I could in order to preserve their freshness and the crisp, harsh pain of that capsaicin.

It was a video on YouTube that I found that had three simple recipes for hot peppers in turning them into stuff I love to use around the kitchen. I decided to make my own hot sauce and my own chili flakes based on the steps in this video, and I have to credit Lee Kalpakis and A Little Help for these recipes. Here is Lee and her recipes for your use!

As I said above, I made my own hot sauce, and just two days into the hot sauce mixture I can tell you it's already liquid fire. I used nothing but jalapeno, Tabasco, and Huganrian hot wax peppers, and it's scorching. It's deliciously good, but I've decided to let it stand for the full seven days. My only complaint? I wish it were a little thicker, but perhaps that thickening will come as the mixture stands longer. I'll keep you posted on that.

The red pepper flakes are also incredibly good, and this mixture combines all of the hot peppers above plus a couple of yellow bell peppers and red bell peppers each. Again, I am very impressed by how hot this mixture turned out, and my pizza may set off fire alarms with these pepper flakes sprinkled on it.

I tip my cap to Lee Kalpakis because these recipes, as she demonstrated, are incredibly easy and the results are fantastic. There should be another harvesting of peppers in a week or so, and I may try doing the chili oil. I don't believe I have much use for it, though, so I may just do more hot sauce because I tend to use that stuff in all sorts of meals.

If you have any additional ideas for using these peppers, leave your ideas in the comments!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!