Blogging Ottinger (tim)

Well, I gotta use up a whole lot of jalapenos and habaneros. Time for some more home made madness.

I figured that I’d start by grinding up a dozen jalapenos with a half-dozen habaneros. It smelled so good that I did it twice. I ended up with a big pile of pepper mash, and the most wonderful smell in the kitchen. I put in maybe half a medium onion just for fun. Mmmm.. I can’t describe how my kitchen smells. You would be amazed.

So I got out some canning jars. In the first I put an inch and a half of the pepper mash, then some salt, alternating until pretty much full. Then splashed in vinegar. Now, this smelled wonderful too. Feeling pretty good, I do the next similarly but put garlic powder in with the salt between the layers.

I’ve got some cherry tomatoes. Hmmm, says I, I have some pepper mash left over too. What a wonderful coincidence! And we’ve got some dried cilantro. Providence has dictated a batch of DEATH SALSA! The proportion of tomato to pepper is pretty much upside down. No way I would feed this to the church social. But I gotta try it. So I dip in the spoon and give it a shot. Even fresh like this, it toasted my mouth. I let the oldest (high schooler) have a little taste, and he ran away. It’s dying to be the secret ingredient in my next actual salsa, but I can’t eat it as is.

I work with some pepperheads. I wonder if they’d like it?

Well, the canning jars get boiled & lidded, and now I can’t remember which is garlic and which is not. The death salsa is the only one with tomato, so that’s easy. Now we’ll soak the mash down for a few weeks and then maybe pour it off as a sauce, and maybe use the mash itself as a rub on something.

Updates:

The last batch of habenero & tomato looks good. It beckons me from within it’s little glass prison. I can hardly stand it.

The pepper juice (wimpy stuff) from the same batch sits next to the old green sauce from my first attempt. I see a romance developing between them, and the likelihood of marriage increases. But I’m also really interested in cooking up some rice with onion & seasonings, using the pepper sauce as part of the water instead of using chicken broth. Slightly spicy onion & rice sounds really good to me. So we’ll see if the romance is allowed to bloom.

The pepper mash from my wife’s sauce is still soaking into veggies in canning jars in the fridge. That was some good sauce.

It’s clear now that I’m going to have to start marking dates on these jars. Some “don’t open until” date. Frankly I’ve no idea how long these should sit. Weeks?

Ah, well, I’ve got a few dozen more peppers tucked away in the freezer. So many peppers, so little time.