Hot Sauce

Sometimes the things I make are not planned. For example, last week, my friend Colleen gifted me with six jalapeno peppers grown in her friend's garden in Connecticut. Friend had sent a package of home grown vegetables to work in Manhattan with her husband to give to Colleen's husband, who then carried them home on the train to New Jersey. Colleen and hubby don't eat spicy foods much, so I became the lucky recipient of the peppers.

I had never cooked with fresh, hot peppers before, having only used jalapenos from a can, so it took me a few days and some polling and research to decide what to do with them. I ended up having an interesting conversation with my neighbor's nanny, who is from the Carribean. She said that if she had the peppers, she would make hot sauce.

What? Make hot sauce? I never even knew such a thing was possible! Nanny Felicia only gave sketchy details, so I did some internet research on my own, and found that there are numerous sites devoted to hot sauce making and almost as many different methods for making it. True to my usual form, I read many different recipes and then delved in with my own ideas.

First I donned some latex gloves before washing and cutting the peppers. (The look on my neighbor's face when I answered the doorbell without removing the gloves was priceless). I removed some, but not all all the seeds and placed the cut up peppers in a pyrex bowl. I also cut up one red onion and added a clove of garlic. I measured a half cup of vinegar and poured it over the vegetables. I covered the bowl with microwave-safe lid and boiled the mixture in the microwave until the vegetables were tender, stirring occasionally. (The reason I didn't boil in a saucepan was that I read that the vinegar and peppers will react to metals, and I didn't know if my pans were non reactive, so I thought I'd better stick to glass)

After the peppers, garlic and onions were tender, I used my immersion blender to blend the mixture into a cream like consistency. Then I added 1/2 tsp each of salt and sugar. I mixed this and poured the sauce into a sterilized jar and store it in the refridgerator. So far we've had it on pizza, and it was very tasty!

I had to wash all the utensils and dishes used by hand and then run them through the dishwasher twice, but it was worth it!

And now I can mark Tabasco sauce off my shopping list for a while longer. Thanks Colleen!