hot sauce x-mas present

Eric smothers most of his food in hot sauce.  Since he loves it so much I decided to make it for him for x-mas.  While I was picking out hot peppers at the store, I couldn't decide if I should make red or green hot sauce.  I indecisively ended up making one of each.  Turned out to be pretty festive...

The internet was not at all clear about the best way to make hot sauce.  You can use any hot pepper you come across and then you can ferment the peppers, half ferment/ half cook the peppers, or just cook the peppers in order to access their juices.  You can also add other ingredients like onions.

Hey readers, do you have a favorite hot sauce recipe or a favorite hot pepper to grow in the garden specifically for its stellar hot sauce flavor? 

Ingredients:
3/4 lb. hot peppers, stems removed

• 3/4 lb. red frezno for my 1st batch
• 1/2 lb. jalapeño + 1/4 lb. serrano for my 2nd batch

3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 t. salt
1/4 c. white vinegar

Use a food processor to mince up the hot peppers, garlic, and salt.  Put the mixture in a covered glass jar for a week.  Stir every few days.  Transfer to a small saucepan and add the vinegar. Cook over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes.  Put it through a food processor again.  Strain the liquid into a bottle.

blueberry infused vodka

Cheers!  Na zdrowie! За здоровя / Za zdorovja!

This blueberry infused vodka (aka horilka) finished infusing just in time for a whole hearted cheers!  Cheers to what you say?  To our buying a house in Wheat Ridge, CO!!  Here we come perennial edibles, bees, chickens, home energy improvements and more!!!!!

Ingredients:
3 cups blueberries (we happened to have frozen around)
750 mL vodka

Soak blueberries in vodka for 3 - 6 weeks in a large glass jar.  Shake things up every once in awhile.  Strain the infused vodka into a fancy bottle.  Serve.  Also maybe figure out what to do with your leftover vodka blueberries.  Probably don't put them into pie as the solo fruit.  Too much alcohol!

savory french toast

Inspired by the idea of savory waffles,  I made savory french toast. Slices of rosemary bread were dipped in egg and fried, then topped with some of our last counter-ripened tomatoes and baked. This turned out really well. I would definitely make savory french toast again.

calendula salve

I'm not sure how effective this healing salve will be since Eric made it from an oil that I infused with a friend about a year ago, but hey better late than never?  The salve is made of beeswax, olive oil, calendula (from the garden), chamomile, comfrey, lavender, and plantain. Next time we will slip in some vitamin E. 

bloody mary pizza

Bloody mary pizza, why not? (includes vodka, Worcestershire sauce, celery seed, pickled okra, dilly beans, and smoked mozzarella)

savory pumpkin cheddar bread

I made a pumpkin-less version of this quick bread earlier in the year, but life is all things pumpkin these days so I had to squeeze in pumpkin this time.  I also used leeks in place of most of the chives called for in the original recipe because our chives are looking a little droopy after last week's snow storm (the second of the season! but as usual it has already melted).

Ingredients:
1 c. all purpose flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 T baking powder
3/4 t. salt
1/2 t. red pepper
- - -
3 eggs
1 c. pumpkin puree
1/4 c. water
1/2 c. olive oil
- - -
4 oz. grated cheddar
2 oz. cubed cheddar
1/2 c. leek, thinly sliced
2 T. chives, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Mix together the dry stuff.  Mix together the wet stuff.  Mix the dry and wet together.  Fold in the cheddar, leeks, chives, and garlic.  Pour into a greased 5x9 loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes.

crispy kale and coconut

Needing new inspiration for ways to eat kale, I searched and found a recipe for crispy kale and coconut. It seems the recipe originally appeared in the Super Natural Every Day book. This recipe is great because it is a bit like kale chips in that the kale takes on a satisfying, crispy texture, yet it isn't so important that every piece gets crispy. Plus, you can eat it with a spoon!

group jam session

A friend organized a jam-making and canning session to process two big boxes of fruit: one of plums and one of pears. It took a long time, but together we canned 48 pints worth of plum jam, pear jam, and pear slices in vanilla brandy syrup.

I was particularly excited about the plum jam because we were able to rely on the naturally occurring pectin to get it to gel. Especially because of my past failure trying to do this with crabapples, which I simply didn't boil long enough and added too much sugar. But now I know the trick of using frozen spoons and plates to check if it will gel. We added some no-sugar pectin to the pear jam just because it was taking a long time.

Pitting plums, peeling pears. We didn't peel the plums, which saved a lot of work. While stewing, we blended them with an immersion blender, which turned the jam a wonderful dark purple color.


We had a lot of simultaneous stove action:


Dueling pressure canners (in water bath mode)–what a beautiful sight!

acorn squash macaroni

Noodles smothered in a puree of roasted acorn squash, roasted hatch green chilies, and caramelized whiskey maple onions.  Topped with chevre and garlic butter bread crumbs and baked to flavor infusing perfection!

pumpkin oat breakfast bars

What's the deal with chia seeds, people?  Boulder seems pretty hot about them these days so I'm guessing that they must be some kind of "super food."

I just looked it up and chia seeds, like flax seeds contain omega-3 fatty acids.  As a vegetarian, you should pay some attention to making sure you get your omega-3. For all you meat eaters out there, I've heard food science mumbo jumbo about balancing omega-3 out with omega-6 because grain fed meat has thrown off our natural balance.

Warning, these are fairly healthy tasting.  Also, this was my first attempt at these so let me know if you come up with any good revisions.  I modified this recipe quite a bit to include pumpkin.

Ingredients:
2 c. rolled oats
1 1/2 c. oat flour (aka blended rolled oats)
1/2 c. ground flax seeds
1/4 c. chia seeds
1 1/2 t. baking powder 
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. salt
dash nutmeg
dash allspice
- - -
1 c. sugar
2 1/2 c. cooked, pealed, blended pumpkin (or any other winter squash)
1/2 c. soy milk
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. peanut butter
1 T. vanilla extract
- - -
1/2 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients.  Mix wet and dry together.  Fold in dried fruit and nuts. Pour into a greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the edges turn golden.