When Life Gives You Peppers- Make Hot Sauce

A motley crew of hot peppers have been hanging out in my produce drawer for a few weeks now. Top of the to-do list two weekends running. Today I had enough. Today I couldn’t take it anymore. Today I made homemade hot sauce.

I’m giving you a recipe but realize that my ingredients were what I had on hand. If I had carrots I would have added them, and perhaps a few more tomatoes if there had been more ripe ones and/or I hadn’t used up most of the tomatoes making an awesome chicken pot pie with green and ripe tomatoes that I didn’t take a single picture of. But if I had added those things then I might have been scooting dangerously close to the riff on Aardvark sauce that I found. And the peppers were I don’t even know whats, a grab bag from the farmers market and gift bags from our friend Dave who might have told me what was what but that was weeks ago. If I had to guess I’d say cherry peppers, Serrano and/or jalapeno, and a few scotch bonnets.

WEAR GLOVES- if you take nothing else from this remember that any time you handle hot peppers wear gloves. Your hands will thank you- and your nose too if you get an itch, and your eyes if you wear contact lenses.This applies not just when you make hot sauce but anytime you handle the hot.

makes a little over one quart

When Life Gives You Peppers Make Hot Sauce

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Ingredients

  

• 1/2 sweet red onion roughly chopped (about one cup)
• 1/2 cup fresh tomatoes roughly chopped
• 4-5 whole cloves of garlic peels still on
• 1 cup hot peppers seeds and membranes removed
• 1 T dijon or pub style mustard
• 1 T sugar
• 2 tsps kosher salt
• about 1 cup rice vinegar
• about 1 T lime juice

Instructions

 

• On a parchment lined cookie sheet roast onion, tomatoes, garlic, and peppers at 250 degrees for about 40 minutes until vegetables are soft and have begun to sweat. I only roasted the peppers for about twenty as I had the rest of the ingredients in the oven already as I prepared the peppers. (i’m not sure that roasting makes much difference but I wanted to roast the garlic)
• Peel the garlic cloves and then combine all ingredients except lime juice in a medium sized non-reactive pan.
• Simmer over low heat for at least an hour (I went two or three), allow to cool and puree in a food processor or blender. Add lime juice and a bit more vinegar to achieve desired consistency.
• Store in clean glass jars and refrigerate.

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