Fermented Pepper Hot Sauce

In November, as the farmer's market season was winding down, and as there were fewer and fewer vegetables available at farmers' booths, we bought the hot sauce that would change our lives. Jim, the creator of the hot sauce, had sold us some of his jalapenos, which were some of the spiciest I've ever had; he also usually had a good variety of peppers available. And it was just something about that cool and cloudy day that prompted us to try some of the hot sauce (he dripped a little onto our fingers with a pipette); after one taste, we were hopelessly hooked on the stuff. It had a pleasant spiciness that intensified after a few seconds, and a slightly sour/complex taste that often accompanies fermented things. The flavor was also bright and tangy, and slightly sweet. I couldn't imagine 1) that I'd gone through life without this stuff and 2) that I used to not like spicy things. 


I liked the hot sauce so much, I knew that I had to try making some of our own, so we got some Tennessee cherry peppers from Jim. At his instruction, we went and bought a decent bottle of riesling, made a brine using the wine, and fermented the peppers in that brine for two months. After two months, we split up the peppers into 3 groups: one was frozen for later use, one went into making a simple hot sauce, and the third was blended with peaches, molasses, mustard powder, and other delicious things to make a sweeter, more complex hot sauce. 
Hardly a savory meal goes by without us using one of the hot sauces. Even though we made at least a quart and a half of hot sauce, we have gone through half of it already, and I'm glad that we have some peppers frozen, should there come a day when we run out. 


Tonight, we doused our southern-themed (sauteed collards, barbecue tofu steaks, and pumkin cornbread) dinner in the plain hot sauce. If you've never considered making your own hot sauce, I suggest admonish that you at least give it a go--you won't be disappointed with the results.

Lemons Twice Over: Limoncello and Lemonade Mix

January is citrus season, and beyond my experiments with marmalade, I'm venturing to make a few other things with the great organic citrus that seems so abundant. I've wanted to make Limoncello for a while, but for some reason, kept thinking of it as a summer beverage, and only recently realized that it'd be best to make it NOW (when, as I said, citrus is abundant), so it can have a few months to age before we consume it.

I've made infused liquor exactly once--soaking blueberries in vodka for a few months, then mixing with a simple syrup and allowing the mixture to mellow. At the time that I made it, it was only half-intentional--we had too many blueberries for me to know what to do with (at the time), and a bottle of vodka sitting around; thus, the liquor was born. And because we only had a quart of it, it's been carefully

rationed--in fact, we still have some sitting around on the bottom of a jar in our liquor cabinet.

Most limoncello recipes are pretty basic: zest or peel (organic) lemons, put the zest into a glass container with (some kind of) grain alcohol, and wait. Then strain the mixture, mix with simple syrup, and allow to age/mellow for a few months before consuming. Usually, the ratio of simple syrup to alcohol is 1:1; usually, the zest is allowed to infuse for at least two weeks. Otherwise, the limoncello recipes vary little--some people swear by a fine zest, while others insist that peeling the lemons in wide strips produces a clearer limoncello. Most people will recommend a higher proof alcohol (the highest you can find, really), as it extracts more of the lemon essence. For our batch, I mostly peeled the lemons, after realizing that our old zester is getting dull, and put the peels into containers with 190 proof Everclear. I think that after thirty days, or so, it'll be ready for the next step of the process.

After peeling a dozen or so lemons, I was left with...well, the lemons. I looked at them for a minute or so, and decided that there was no better way to use them than to make a lemonade mix (or lemon syrup). I combined 2.5 cups of lemon juice with 4.5 cups of sugar, brought it just to boiling, ladled into jars, and now am a proud owner of two and a half pints of lemon syrup! The syrup will be good to have on hand for many things, especially when summer comes around; we usually end up buying a few bottles of good organic lemonade at the store because it looks so tempting, and the syrup will be a good substitute.