Kitchen Adventures

Some things are still blooming in the garden so I made myself a pretty little bouquet for the kitchen. (Yes, we have a green wall in there. The color is called celery.)

The hot peppers are still going strong so after reading an inspirational blog post (sorry, can't find the link) about making hot sauce, I decided to whip up a batch of my own. I seeded, deveined, and sliced a green bell pepper, 8 salsa peppers, and a handful of itty bitty jalapenos. I threw them into a saute pan on low heat with four crushed cloves of garlic, a chopped green (unripe) tomato, and the smallest amount of oil necessary to get a little sizzle. After everything got a hint of color, I put a lid on and added about a 1/4 cup of water and let them cook for 20 minutes. When everything got soft, I put it all in the blender with 3/4 cup of white vinegar, the juice of a lime, a teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and blended the mix until it was smooth and sauce-like. Then I returned the mix to a saucepan, tasted and seasoned it, brought it up to a boil, and decanted the mix into a sanitized bottle.

Besides feeling amazingly cool for having made my very own hot sauce, I now have a super delicious condiment to put on everything from chili to chicken to corn chips. This stuff even has potential in the cocktail realm but that's more Josh's area of expertise.