Some like it hot

I’ve said many times how much we love spicy food in this house. Ryley isn’t there yet; she won’t even eat barbecue sauce or mustard because they’re “spicy.” Jeremiah and I, however, have a different hot sauce for every occasion. Even to the fact that my mom has given us hot sauce gift sets for the last two Christmases, and we love and finish every single one!

Now that I have so many chilies growing, I’ve been trying to use them with our meals. The Serrano chili peppers were the first to appear, and we put them on our burgers, in fresh salsa, and on soup. I picked them off a few at a time, and after a few months, I started picking them just out of panic that they’d be going bad soon. One started looking a little brown and I thought for sure it was ruined, but it was still plump and “healthy.” I googled about the peppers and discovered that they are supposed to turn red to show they’ve fully ripened. While looking it up, I found a response from someone who posted a very basic concept for a hot sauce that seemed like it would be very similar to Tabasco.

Well, we love Tabasco, so I thought it might be fun to give it a try. Homemade hot sauce… awesome. I read that the longer it sits and rests, the spicier it gets. My chilies are little bitty ones, but let me tell you, the smell from the blender made my eyes water. I included a clove of garlic, a cup of white vinegar, and a dash of salt and sugar. After simmering for 10 minutes and then blending a second time, I MacGuyver-ed a combination strainer/funnel out of Pampered Chef products to remove the seeds and pulp. Perhaps this will prevent my batch from increasing heat over time, but it feels like it’s going to be perfectly spicy enough already. After letting it cool awhile, I covered the wine bottle anyway just to see if a day or two will at least let the flavors blend a bit. I’ll let you know how it is as soon as we try it!