Adventures in hot sauce making

I haven't been so great with the posting lately, but with the new job and returning from vacation and whatnot, things have been a bit busy. In the frenzy of preserving before I left for SE Asia, I had to figure out what to do with that abundance of peppers I was accumulating. Seth and I decided that jalapeno hot sauce would be the fate of the spicy ones.

We went with this recipe from allrecipes.com.

1 tsp vegetable oil
20 fresh jalapeno peppers, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup minced onion
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups water
1 cup distilled white vinegar

In a medium glass or enamel lined sauce pan over high heat, combine oil, peppers, garlic, onion and salt; saute for 4 minutes. Add the water and cook for 20 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool to room temperature.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor and puree until smooth. With the processor running, slowly add the vinegar.

Pour into a sterilized jar with a tight lid. This sauce will keep for 6 months when stored in the refrigerator.



The chopping process should definitely be done with gloves. We thought immediate hand-washing would be enough, but we both regretted this decision hours later when our hands were still tingling. We weren't sure how many seeds to include, so we ended up deseeding about half of them.



I'd also advise making sure your kitchen is VERY well-ventilated when you're cooking this! The effect of simmering jalapenos for 20 minutes was much like slowly pepper-spraying the kitchen. With the windows open and the fan on, we still had to vacate the kitchen for a while.



We ended up with 2 cups of delicious hot sauce in the end though, which obviously made Seth very emotional (nothing to do with all the pepper in the air).

Back!

Finally back in DC, and I started the new job today, so things have been a bit hectic. Laos and Vietnam were both excellent. I was happy to find that some of my favorite fruits were in season, including dragonfruit and rambutans. I love the tropics!

Yummy dragonfruit! If you haven't had a dragonfruit before, the flavor isn't terribly strong, but they're refreshing and vaguely similar to a kiwi in texture and taste. They're one of my favorites just because they're so visually striking, with the dramatic red exterior and the white(or sometimes pink) interior.

I'm a little overwhelmed now by the current state of my garden though. The morning glory that I battle regularly has taken over and needs to be cut back from a lot of my plants. I have loads to harvest anyway, including loads of tomatoes and eggplant. I need to get started on my garlic planting now too!

Laos!

This month will end up being a quiet one on the blog posting front, largely because I'm in Laos right now! I have a new job starting at the end of the month, so I decided to take off on vacation to visit a friend in Southeast Asia for a couple weeks beforehand. Hopefully, my garden is faring well in my absence!

In the meantime, I'll be enjoying some lovely tropical fruits (rambutans and longans and dragonfruits, oh my!).

Quick pickles

I went to the store last night to pick up my non-iodized salt for pickling some peppers, and, sadly, I forgot to pick up the rubber gloves necessary to make chopping massive quantities of jalapenos tolerable. In the mood for pickling anyway, I mixed up a quick batch of refrigerator pickles using a recipe my mom sent me a couple years ago.



I had a few cucumbers that needed to be used, and I've tried this recipe before, so I can attest to its deliciousness. Mom says she found the recipe in an issue of Navy Family (?) a few years back. Here you go:

GRANDMA’S QUICK DILL REFRIGERATOR PICKLES

3 large cucumbers, unpeeled

1 large red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ½ in. strips

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1 T. salt

1 T. dill seed

¾ cup sugar

½ cup white wine vinegar

Cut cucumbers crosswise into 1/4 in. thick slices.

In a large bowl, combine cucumbers, bell pepper and onions. Add salt and dill seed; stir well. Let stand, uncovered for 1 to 2 hours; stir occasionally.

In a small bowl, combine sugar and vinegar; stir until the sugar is dissolved. Pour over the vegetables and mix gently. Spoon into large glass or ceramic containers. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 day or up to 3 weeks. Drain before serving. Makes 8 cups.

No fancy canning equipment required!

So. Many. Peppers.

While other people are struggling with their late summer zucchini bounty, I've got peppers everywhere. So many peppers. Hot peppers, sweet peppers, red and green and even a purple one. I've already managed to fill a couple of quart bags of them to freeze:



I've been desperately trying to find some pickling salt, because I'd really like to try pickling some of these, especially the hot peppers. I've had no luck so far, so I might just try to pick up some non-iodized salt from Giant this evening to use instead. I'm also going to be picking up some rubber gloves, because I know those jalapenos can burn!

Anyone else doing anything interesting with a pepper bounty?

More on hops...

I was actually able to harvest some hops, although I have no idea what kind they are!



I learned that hops need to be dried first for beer use, so I'll have these sitting on a window screen for a few days to do just that. I'm turning them every day while they're drying.



After they're done drying, they can be stored in the freezer for a few months if you're not going to use them right away. Just put them in a plastic bag, and squeeze as much air out as you can get. I'll be excited to make some beer with these soon, although I haven't picked out a recipe for them yet.

Speaking of beer, last night we popped open a couple bottles of our recently bottled IPA, made using the Imperial Ale 60-Minute kit from Annapolis Home Brew. Delicious!

Hops

One of my favorite features in the Butterfly Garden at the Youth Garden is the hops teepee pictured here. This is created from a few long bamboo poles tied together at the top, with the hops growing up the length of it. The vine is attractive, it smells heavenly, and it's great for attracting butterflies.



Kathy Jentz, of Washington Gardener Magazine, recently spoke on WAMU's Metro Connection (listen here) about growing hops and grapes in the garden, and I'm definitely feeling inspired to try this next year! Housemate Cortney and I have already been scheming to try to fit this fast-growing, sprawling vine into our tiny yard somewhere. The folks over at Homegrown Evolution blogged about their success growing hops in containers earlier this month, so I'm considering a set-up similar to theirs.

Housemate Cort and I just bottled our summertime IPA last week. Hopefully next year's will be made with our own homegrown hops!

If anyone knows of any varieties particularly suited for this area, let me know! Since some varieties are native, maybe this is also a good candidate for some low maintenance guerrilla gardening?