thursday we decided to make him some more hot sauce - he loves spicy hot sauce. last year as we were harvesting our peppers, we ate them as we harvested them. we made 2 quart-sized mason jars of hot sauce for him - he loved it! but then we had a glut of peppers (my friend SciFiChick was really proud!) and so we froze them to save them to make more hot sauce when he ran out. here is a mix of sweet italian red peppers, big bombs, orange thai peppers, monet jalapeno, hungarian hot wax and cayenne peppers with some onion and a ton of garlic.
and here is some super hot sauce in the making made of mostly orange thai hot peppers and a little of all of the others with onion and garlic.
poor jam was sneezing and coughing as i was cooking the peppers! so were the cats! these 2 pans of hot sauce were really fragrant!
i cook the onions up a bit in some olive oil, throw in the crushed garlic, add a ton of salt and pepper and then add the peppers. i cook the peppers for about 3 minutes and then add one cup of water. i then keep cooking it all on high, constantly stirring until the majority of the water has boiled off - about 20 minutes. then we put each kind of pepper mix into a bowl, cover them with a towel and bring them to the basement to cool off for several hours.
here are the 2 mixtures after they have been cooked.
once the mixtures have been cooled, i put them in the blender and chop them up, slowly adding 1 cup of vinegar as it's mixing. you can make it as chunky or as smooth as you want. here's a quart jar of regular kymberz "kick-you-right-in-the-head" sauce and a pint jar of kymberz "your-grandchildren-are-gonna-feel-a-kick-in-the-head "sauce. the regular sauce is HOT but the orange thai chili sauce is DEADLY HOT. my man loves them both.
the small jar with the red lid is the super hot sauce and is for my besties son d - he loves and collects all kinds of hot sauces. i can't wait for him to try mine - he's probably gonna fall down and faint - bahahahah!
here's some mixed bean salad that we like to have on hand all the time. it's 5 different kinds of beans, 4 different-coloured peppers, cayenne, cumin, turmeric, garlic, olive oil, and ACV (with the mother), sea salt and fresh ground pepper topped with some shaved parmesan. a little of this stuff goes a long way!
here's a spring peeper sunning himself on a comfrey leaf. i love them! they sing "meep-meep-meep" all night long. it's a very comforting sound and you know when you start hearing them every night that summer just around the corner - woohoo!
jam was wanting spaghetti of lobster for weeks now. it hurts me to adulterate lobster in any way except for eating it plain or making lobster rolls. but to appease my man, we broke apart 2 beautiful lobsters and adulterated them!
my version on the left is a garlic and cream spaghetti of lobster with shaved parmesan. jam's is on the right and is a tomatoe-pesto version with a ton of my home-made hot sauce. it was delicious - don't get me wrong - but i just prefer to eat my lobster plain.
here are the beautiful flowers on my sage plant that we overwintered.
what a beautiful plant!!! i will be saving seeds from it so if anyone wants some - let me know.
jam loves hamburgers during the nice weather days - and as i love to feed him - he gets what he wants!
i have to say - i make a mean patty! he loves these burgers and cooks them to perfection!
today was a lazy day at the Manor. we did our normal chores as per usual, but also spent time trying to lay outside. we couldn't do it. it's that dreaded season. BLACK FLY SEASON!!! arghghghghgh! we're both bit to death from watering gardens and trying to sun tan. it's impossible during black fly season. so we took our loungers and put them on our porch. we lay out there all afternoon and it was lovely.
and a hint for anyone who has blackflies and a blackfly season - stock up on benadryl. most people, us included, get wonky and crazy after too many blackfly bites - their venom is pretty powerful stuff. if after getting bit by those little buggers, you start to feel wonky, crazy, feverish, sluggish, can't think straight - take a benadryl. trust me - it works! and i hate taking pills! i also hate having to smear myself down with deet for the next 2 months - arghghghghgh!
well, that's it for now. jam is working on his contract for LRUS and i am going to hit up my bloglist! i hope you are all having a lovely weekend!
I prefer "mild" sauce, myself. I must not have any hispanic genes.
ReplyDeleteGorges - jam grew up in a very ethnic city and was exposed to a wide variety of spicy foods. i am like you in that i like mild spicy but he likes spicy-spicy! sending much love! xox
DeleteIt's possible for you to be even more wonky?
ReplyDeleteI hear kissing fish also works to remove the bad Blackfly bite side effects.
yes, my dear sweet darlin' - after i get too many bites i get wonky - so does everyone! i dare you to come and visit during black fly season - you won't last a day. and no kissing fish doesn't work - i kiss fish all the time! bahahahahah! much love! xoxo
DeleteThat lobster-ghetti looks fab. I have had an awesome lobster mac and cheese a few times but never like that.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your beautiful weather!! Wish we had some here, ha.
the lobster-ghetti was absolutely delicious - but why do that to perfectly steamed beautiful lobster when you can just eat it plain??? i have had mac and cheese lobster as well and what can i say - i don't like stuff in my lobster -i'm a purist - bahahahah! i sure do hope you guys get a break soon - THAT's a lot of rain you've been getting! sending much love to you both! xoxo
DeleteI love spicy food but something tells me the Jam is on a whole other level. I'm pretty sure I would be suffering eating some of that stuff from the pint jar.
ReplyDeleteEd - he looooves really spicy food but can only eat a tiny touch of my super hot sauce. THAT stuff is deadly! i can't wait for my friend's son to try it - bahahahah! jam will bring it to work and i just know that my friend's son will be all cool and stick his finger right in it and then say "ah. heck it's - OH MY GAWD"! and then jump right into the harbour to try to put out the fire in his mouth - bahahahah! much love buddy! xoxo
Deletedid you de-seed the peppers?
ReplyDeletewas the sage overwintered indoors or on a covered porch--in other words, how much cold can it take?
thanks.
deb h.
deb - i picked the peppers and cleaned them, left the tops on and the seeds inside and then froze them. before making the sauce, i defrosted them and cut off the tops but left all of the seeds in as they add a different level of heat. once blitzed in the blender the seeds get ground up and become part of the sauce - you can't see the seeds in the sauce.
Deleteas for the sage plant - i overwintered it in our unheated greenhouse outside. i put it and a few other herbs in a stand wrapped in plastic inside the greenhouse and watered those herbs about once a week. the sage and herbs went into a dormant phase but once there was a good 8hours a day of sunlight (mid-march) they all started growing again.
we had an unnaturally cold winter that seemed to last forever with many stretches of below zero temps but the sage (and mint, rosemary, lemon balm, bee balm, anise hyssop and oregano) all came back with the longer days. hope this helps - if you have any other questions just yell!
Our sage and thyme and chocolate mint winter ok. We have sub-zero temps that sometimes linger, and a lot of daytime temps that never get above 20 degrees (F). The sauce sounds good.
ReplyDeleteSweet Kymber,
ReplyDeleteI bet your cats, and Jaime can't wait until your outdoor kitchen is functional especially when making some of your famous hot sauce. Cooking outside will help with the all those spicy fumes which in turn will stop the sneezing and coughing. I bet that would even deter those darn black flies too!!!!
I wonder if the fumes would deter those flies completely??
Beautiful flowers on your sage plant, do they have a scent?
Always love all the good looking food you post and make for your man :-)
Tonight, we just made plain pasta with a little butter. Neither one of us wanted anything special.
Now that nice weather is around, I'm sure you and Jam will be sun bathing more inside the screened in area.
Enjoy!
Sending hugs and love to both of you.
Sandy
P.S. It stopped raining!!!
I am going to try your approach to hot sauces...they look beautiful and are HOT even online:)! I froze some green habanero's two yeas ago and would add 1/4 of a pepper to a big stew for Ralph's lunches a work. It was just the right amount but one day I was in a hurry to add green peppers to a stir fry for his lunch and added a handfull of the green habanero bits by mistake! He phoned me fro work with a few "Blistering" comments! :)
ReplyDeleteHopefully, you'll also have birds eye and piquante peppers to add to your sauces in future :)
ReplyDeleteI bet if you slathered some of that hot sauce on your body's that them black flies would leave you all alone. And, I'm with you, I like my lobster naked. Well, maybe a bit of butter on the side.
ReplyDeleteAlso, hope you don't burn your buns, layin out in the sun.
Love to you both from Kathi and Me.
I'm reminded of the tabasco sauce advert when the flies explode as they bite In! That ssounds great sauce but too hot for me. Ive got lots of chillies growing this year so I'll make a milder version I think! Do you pickle garlic? It's something I'm going to do this year as by now all my stored stuff is starting to grow.
ReplyDelete