Try Turbo-1's Habanero Sauce - Hot Stuff!

[Astronuc]

I'm looking forward to tasting some of turbo's habanero sauce.

 

[turbo]

I'm looking forward to tasting some of turbo's habanero sauce.

You'll taste it soon enough! It's pretty easy to make, since my wife decided to further simplify the recipe.

Chop 12 habaneros and 2-3 cloves of garlic in a food processor. Transfer to saucepan with 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1/2 tsp sale, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp molasses. Bring to a boil, then transfer to sterilized canning jars and process in a boiling-water bath for 15 minutes.

We doubled the recipe this time, and used a whole large bulb of fresh Russian garlic from our neighbor's garden. Mmmm!

 

[Astronuc]

See you at dinner time.

 

[turbo]

Today, I picked cucumbers and peppers, and my wife and I chopped, canned and pickled all day (still not entirely done with the pickling). We combined habaneros, jalapenos, lipstick chilis, and a nice assortment of red peppers that Astronuc brought up with 3 large bulbs of German garlic that our neighbor gave us to make a really flavorful pepper sauce. Actually, it's not a sauce in the sense that things are pureed and watered down - it's more like a very hot, tasty relish.

We are now cooking off the bread-and-butter pickles and sterilizing the canning jars and lids prior to processing. I picked cucumbers two other times this week and refrigerated them, and with the onions, green peppers, German garlic and other ingredients, we'll probably can close to 20 quarts of those pickles this afternoon. Mmmm!

Some of Astonuc's peppers are very flavorful, but mild, and some are very zippy, and the end result with our flavorful jalapenos and the sneaky-hot habaneros is a pepper relish that is to die for. My wife had to run back to town for some additional Mason jars, and she took in some "overage" (too much to fit in another jar, not enough to justify canning another jar) to the owner of the store. From his reaction, we may have to consider franchising this stuff. He has asked for more (for personal consumption) and we may have to start charging him if we can't establish an equitable barter system (we do need Mason jars, as many of them do not find their way back home when we give give canned goods away) or else charge him and keep increasing the price until he squeaks. You can't buy stuff like this in any store, and he and our garlic-growing neighbor are pepper-heads.

 

[Astronuc]

Today, I picked cucumbers and peppers, and my wife and I chopped, canned and pickled all day (still not entirely done with the pickling). We combined habaneros, jalapenos, lipstick chilis, and a nice assortment of red peppers that Astronuc brought up with 3 large bulbs of German garlic that our neighbor gave us to make a really flavorful pepper sauce. Actually, it's not a sauce in the sense that things are pureed and watered down - it's more like a very hot, tasty relish.

Some of Astonuc's peppers are very flavorful, but mild, and some are very zippy, and the end result with our flavorful jalapenos and the sneaky-hot habaneros is a pepper relish that is to die for. My wife had to run back to town for some additional Mason jars, and she took in some "overage" (too much to fit in another jar, not enough to justify canning another jar) to the owner of the store. From his reaction, we may have to consider franchising this stuff. He has asked for more (for personal consumption) and we may have to start charging him if we can't establish an equitable barter system (we do need Mason jars, as many of them do not find their way back home when we give give canned goods away) or else charge him and keep increasing the price until he squeaks. You can't buy stuff like this in any store, and he and our garlic-growing neighbor are pepper-heads.

I need feedback on the mild peppers, so I can avoid them in the future.

Hey, turbo, provide me the specs on the jars, and next time I'll bring a box full.

I was just thinking that you guys should go pro with your hot sauces, relishes and other spiced up food!

 

[turbo]

The skinny, crooked red ones were pretty mild, but they have a nice flavor. That's the reason that I keep planting jalapeno peppers. They are not hot enough for some purposes, but they have a wonderful scent and flavor and they can turn a hot pepper relish from simply hot to hot and tasty.

When scraped clean of the placenta and seeds, jalapenos make tasty, mild, poppers that most folks love, though my wife and I tend to leave them pretty intact (just slice them in half and stuff them) for our own consumption. I cleaned the heck out of the jalapenos we made the poppers with on Thursday night, and the hot-averse members of your family seemed to survive (and thrive) on them. We had them again this afternoon when my sister-in-law and her husband showed up to pick blackberries (along with chicken, hot dogs, and burgers - instant replay) and sent them home with a gallon of cukes, too. The poppers were a bit hotter this time around but my sister-in-law went back for extras after tucking into one that brought tears to her eyes.

 

[turbo]

Today, we started a batch of tomato and pepper salsa with lipstick chilis, jalapeno, green habanero, bell pepper, onion, garlic, fresh cilantro, etc. It's cooling now so I can put it in the fridge overnight, but tomorrow I'll put it back on the stove to simmer and thicken all day so we can process it in Mason jars tomorrow night. Mmm!

My wife visited a supermarket on her way home from work and found only 3 white onions in stock at the height of canning season and bought them all. (all?) If I owned that store, the manager of the produce department would either start taking some interest in his job, or he'd be down the road. There were no habaneros in stock, nor any other reliably hot peppers, either. Those of us who can our produce rely on large stores to supply some of the "basics", and it is a shame that these fools cannot identify seasonal peaks in sales and plan ahead. Lots of folks up here who are not otherwise into canning produce will at least put up a batch or two of home-made pickles, so there is always a solid demand for onions, peppers, dill, mustard seeds, etc in late summer and early fall. These big food chains can't seem to get it through their heads that these seasonal demands on basic commodities can be great loss-leaders to get people in the front door. There is a store in the town about 15 miles south of here that routinely runs sales on bananas for 3# for a dollar. It's not a big store, but the meat and produce are reliably good, and there are lots of pensioners in that town that will shop there because of the attractive loss-leaders and the small friendly staff.

Edit: the guy who bought that store in the 1960's was a marketing genius. His name was George Cannell, and I dated his younger daughter for a time. He called his store "George's Banana Stand" and he ran almost constant specials on bananas, and mixed it up with some other specials on produce and meat. The genius? The retired folks who were drawn in by his dirt-cheap prices on bananas (a good source of potassium) couldn't possibly buy and eat enough of them in a week to gain any advantage on him. Bananas ripen fast and they spoil, so that his customers who wanted those dirt-cheap prices couldn't stock up, and they came back every week, and maybe treated themselves to a little packet of flounder, or a few blade steaks, and bought some Campbell's soups, ketchup, mustard, flour, etc. Smart guy, and a very nice man. People will pay a little extra for things when they are dealing with neighbors who understand them and give them a little deal from time to time.

When my wife and I were first living together, she was unemployed and I was taking every hour of overtime I could get. The owner of the nearest grocery store was a sargeant-major in the local National Guard unit and he was also the father of a young lady that was dear to me. When I showed up at the store to do some shopping, he would follow me down to the meat counter and ask if I wanted to buy some club steaks or T-bones at hamburg prices because they were getting brown and he was going to have to grind them up anyway. (WTF?) What a nice man! When his store lost power during a storm (I was a kid at the time), he moved a lot of frozen/refrigerated goods out to my future father-in-law's farm so that he could preserve his stock. Up here, we take care of each other. I can't leave Maine.

 

[Astronuc]

A friend sent this to me.

This week's theme: miscellaneous words.

malacia (mu-LA-shuh, -shee-uh) noun

1. An abnormal craving for spiced food.

as opposed to the medical use meaning "softening of the organ or tissue".

In my case, it's not abnormal.

Up here, we take care of each other. I can't leave Maine.

I got the impression that Maine folks are generally genuinely nice. The motorists actually stop for pedestrians - even if there is no crosswalk!

I wouldn't want to leave either.

I noticed that there is plenty of extra room up that way.

 

[turbo]

I noticed that there is plenty of extra room up that way.

I've got an uninhabited township all picked out for you - as long as I can come up and fly-fish the ponds there.

Get out your DeLorme Atlas and look for T2 R7 BKP WKR in the center of map 40. Also known as Misery Township. Got some of the best brook trout fishing in the country - fly-fishing only with strict limits.

 

[turbo]

What a busy (food-processing) time of year! Sunday afternoon, we made a fair-sized batch of hot pepper relish - the best batch yet this year. Yesterday, my wife and I made spaghetti sauce from fresh garden tomatoes and canned a large batch of tomato-based salsa with habanero, jalapeno, and lipstick chilis - very hot and tasty. We put the left-over juice and solids from Sunday's chili relish in the salsa before we simmered it down. We also relented and put up another large batch of dill pickles yesterday, even though our cupboards are mostly full. We harvested about half of our herbs and froze dill, basil, cilantro, parsley and chives in small batches so they can be easily added to soups and sauces this winter. Last but not least, we scalded and peeled a few gallons of green tomatoes which I am simmering down today so that we can turn them into green tomato salsa and can that tonight. The house smells great.

 

[turbo]

Ack! Summer squash? They are the vermin of the garden, and have to be served up with at least garlic, onion, hot peppers, tomato, etc to hide the fact that they taste like boiled cardboard. I grew some zucchinis last year. Had about 12 plants and our freezers still have bags of the frozen cubed stuff. There's a retired lady down the road that likes to make zucchini bread and I loaded her with them until she cried "uncle!". She can have her husband raise a few plants if she runs out - no more space-wasters like that in my garden.

We have a 35 foot row of buttercup squash trained to climb a 4' plastic fence I erected, and the plants are loaded with squash. In our cool cellar, they will last well into February.

My wife and I just put 7 jars of green tomato salsa into the canner to process. This is by far the best salsa we've ever made, and we have plans to keep using green tomatoes to make more. 7 jars sure won't last long, the way this stuff tastes. I boiled down a big pot of green tomatoes today and reduced the volume to about 1/3 the original. Chopped and added a huge white onion and a large bulb of Russian garlic from the neighbor's crop, and bell, jalapeno, habanero and lipstick chili peppers from our garden, with some vinegar for acidity. My new Sabatier 6" chef's knife arrived today (I couldn't help replacing my long-lost former knife) and in addition to the salsa, I used it to remove insect-damaged kernels from a peck of sweet corn and to slice off the kernels for freezing after we boiled them. It is so nice to see the freezers and cupboards getting refilled for the next year. We made insufficient green tomato salsa last year and just about ran out, so we're going to make enough to last the whole year and then another batch or two for insurance.

 

[Astronuc]

We'll meet half way, you hand over the salsas and we'll hand over the chocolates.

Meanwhile, I've been enjoying Turbo's Green Sweet Jalapeno Jelly and a Turbo's Green Hot Pepper Relish - Deeeeelicious!

Can't wait for Turbo's Habanero Pepper Sauce or Turbo's Red Hot Pepper Relish.

I need to send a sample of my Thai Hot and others.

 

[turbo]

Enjoy! We've had to settle for store-bought habanero peppers so far, since ours got a late start and haven't started to ripen yet. I've been using green ones from the garden to season tomato salsas, but we don't have a big enough crop (yet) to make pepper relish with.

 

[Astronuc]

Your habaneros are doing better than mine. I think a deer or rabbit got to them. It was probably a deer since the tops were nibble down. I've picked one ripe habanero pepper so far this season, and there is one more still on another of the 4 plants. It was not a good year for gardening. The rainfall was sporadic - usually dry for 3-4 weeks and then a deluge.

This morning I saw a raccoon trying to get into the pepper patch. He took off before I could get a picture.

 

[turbo]

My father stopped in for a visit this morning while I was boiling down the green tomatoes for salsa. He mentioned that his friend's son (who is confined to a wheelchair) likes very hot food, so I gave him a jar of habanero relish to take to him. His friend has been very generous with vegetables from his garden, and we've gotten sweet corn from him, since we don't bother growing it ourselves. The tomatoes are close to the right consistency, so I'll start chopping peppers, onions, garlic and cilantro for the salsa. Often these salsas are a collaborative effort, but due to the timing, this one's all mine from start to finish.

Edit: Real-estate agents often encourage people to bake an apple pie or some other sweet prior to a showing to make the house smell "homey". I just came in from checking the mail, and Mmmmmm! Nothing smells as good to me as a big batch of salsa simmering on the stove. I'm bringing a canner full of water to a boil to sterilize the jars and lids (See, Evo! I'm no fool!) and will start canning as soon as that is finished.

 

[turbo]

I got 8 more pints of green tomato salsa canned this afternoon. Could have been more, but I simmered and reduced pretty aggressively to make the stuff nice and thick. My wife got to contribute one thing to the product - I hadn't added the salt by the time she got home, so she did that and I processed the salsa while she weeded the garden and picked some cucumbers and tomatoes. She's been reducing salt due to her high BP and I wasn't sure how much to cut back. Mmm! We've got to make up at least another couple of batches to make sure we've got enough for next year. Great stuff!

 

[scorpa]

Turbo homemade salsa is the absolute best! My mom is busy making her salsa now to and I cannot wait to be on the receiving end of a few jars. Store bought salsa just doesn't even compare. I must say though I have never had green tomato salsa but it sounds good!

 

[turbo]

Turbo homemade salsa is the absolute best! My mom is busy making her salsa now to and I cannot wait to be on the receiving end of a few jars. Store bought salsa just doesn't even compare. I must say though I have never had green tomato salsa but it sounds good!

Ask her to make up a batch with green tomatoes. It compares very favorably to salsa made with tomatillos, and it is abolutely KILLER on cheeseburgers, quesadillas, omelets, etc.

The (not so) SECRET recipe:
Start with about 20-30 large green tomatoes, scald and peel them (as best you can - green tomatoes are very reluctant to let go of their skin). Cut them up, add a couple of cups of cider vinegar, and simmer them down for hours in a big pan, until they are reduced by at least 1/2 in volume. When the tomatoes are nice and thick, chop and add two large white onions, two bulbs of fresh garlic (probably 10-12 cloves, depending on the type), two large bell peppers, several jalapenos, several habaneros, and several of whatever other chilis you can get your hands on, along with a few tablespoons of salt. I take most of the seeds out of the bell peppers, but remove only the stems from the chilis - the seeds and placenta of the chilis MUST be in the salsa or it will be wimpy. Simmer until the onions and peppers are cooked, then add chopped fresh cilantro (last ingredient), spoon into sterilized jars, and process in a boiling-water bath for 20 minutes. If the salsa tastes too hot when you sample it with a spoon, it's probably just about right. Remember that you'll be eating it with other foods and that will cut the perceived hotness quite a bit.

 

[Astronuc]

When I was in SD, I tasted some varieties of S`Chüg made by Sabra

Here is a recipe for S`Chug Yemenite Spice, which seems similar to recipes turbo uses.

Ingredients:
8 chilies (jalapeño, cayenne, thai, habanero)
2 garlic cloves
1 bn cilantro (fresh)
1 tb pepper
1 ts cumin; ground
1/2 ts cardamom powder
3 cloves; ground
2 ts salt

Instructions

Roast spices in dry pan, ground them and then add to all other ingredients in a mixer.

One might need to add a little water. The spice mixture should be moist, but not fluid, i.e. like a spread.

Keeps well in sealed jar for weeks in the refrigerator.

On Wikipedia it has a different spelling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skhug

Might as well add - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_sauce

For reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

 

[turbo]

I raided our garden today to take fresh carrots, beets, cucumbers, peppers, and cherry and beefsteak tomatoes to my dad. In return, he gave me a box of sauce tomatoes that he bought from a greenhouse that had mis-labeled their plants. When I got home, my wife was in the process of scalding and peeling tomatoes, so those joined the process, and tomorrow I will simmer them down and build another batch of hot tomato salsa (red tomatoes, this time).

 

[Astronuc]

In addition to Schug (Skhug), there is something similar from Tunisia called Harissa.

Harissa Hot Sauce - http://www.chilliworld.com/FactFile/Hot_Sauce_Recipes/Harissa_Hot_Sauce.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harissa

Substituting lime juice for lemon makes it more interesting. Lime and cilantro go well together.

Then there is Sambal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambal - from Indonesia.
Sambal Ulek (Oelek) and Sambal Bajak may the ones most commonly encountered in the US.

This is one place where I get hot stuff.
http://www.2hotlicks.com/

 

[turbo]

Wow! Those all sound good. So many sauces... The ones we make tend to be more pure chilis, without much seasoning apart from garlic and salt. That way, they can be used in about any dish or sauce. I might try making up a little batch spiced with cumin, though, if we've got more peppers left once we've got the basics taken care. At this point, I need to see at least a couple of dozen more jars of habanero/chili relish and a couple of dozen more jars of hot tomato-based salsa in the cupboard so I know we'll be set for the season.

 

[turbo]

I put up a small batch of hot red-tomato salsa yesterday, but unfortunately it coincided with the last spar varnish coat on my long-overdue refinishing of our 30+ YO Moosehead Maple kitchen table. I will NEVER try to put up a batch of salsa again without a kitchen table. You don't realize how much room you need in a small kitchen to stage,prep, and process the necessary ingredients until you're waiting for another coat of spar varnish to dry on your table. The salsa turned out really nice, and I overheard my wife telling one of her sisters that I would have to make all the salsas in the future, and that she might give up pickling and canning, too. WAAAH! This was supposed to be cooperative fun, not a job! When I was a tyke ~50 years ago, I helped my mother pick, slice, chop, etc, and generally provided the grunt-work that was needed to convert the production of a large garden into preserved food that could keep us fed all winter and through the next harvest. I don't mind doing this work - I remember that as a kid it was fun to get together with extended family to slaughter and process hogs, put up potatoes and squash for the winter, etc. Nowadays, it makes me feel sad when I realize how few people are connected in this way to their sources of food.

 

[turbo]

My wife just headed off to bed, reminding me that due to the potentially rainy Saturday, we should be getting ready to make another big batch of salsa, while watching the Shreck movies. Cool way to burn a Sat afternoon.

 

[scorpa]

It is supposed to freeze tonight so my mom went to go and pick all of the ripe tomotoes, I told her she should pick the green ones to and try making the green tomatoe salsa as well. I hope she gives it a try because it sounds yummy.

 

[turbo]

The green tomato salsa is the best, scorpa. It smells tart and funky while you're simmering down the green tomatoes and vinegar, and then when you mix in the chilis, onions, bell peppers, and garlic, etc, it smells wonderful. Tell her to put in more chilis than normal - the hotter, the better. She should add fresh torn cilantro at the end, just before canning and processing, to keep as much of that flavor as possible.

This is my favorite salsa for cheeseburgers, and we had to ration heavily to avoid running out this last year. It is also really good with omelets.

 

[Math Jeans]

Hey Turbo, I am a huge fan of spicy foods. Whats ur spiciest salsa?

 

[turbo]

Hey Turbo, I am a huge fan of spicy foods. Whats ur spiciest salsa?

We make very spicy tomato-based salsas with jalapeno, habanero and lipstick chilies, but our chili relishes are hotter and the very hottest stuff is the habanero relish. There is some in the little jars in this picture, though those batches were made with store-bought habaneros because we ran out of the home-grown stuff that we canned last season. We're not going to make that mistake this year, and intend to make many more batches as the chilies ripen off. If the frosts come, we'll process the green hapaneros, too, but want to get as many mature ones as possible. Note: This is just one cupboard of pickles and salsas - we've got a bigger one with more food in it, and we've got a big batch of red-tomato salsa simmering on the stove right now. Some of those jars will have to go into the pantry, along with any other hot stuff we make. We not only ran out of habanero relish this year, we ran out of green tomato salsa, too. I swear that's not going to happen again!

 

[turbo]

I just went to the garden and picked a couple of dozen ripe habanero peppers - enough to make at least a couple more little jars of relish. Our neighbor gave us 4 cases of small canning jars with lids and all the fresh German and Russian garlic we can use. He is also going to give us enough of the garlic so that we can plant a very large bed of it this winter. In return, we are keeping him supplied with salsa and pepper relish. It's a good thing we planted lots of chilies this year - we thought we could get perhaps a year ahead canning hot stuff, but with this arrangement, supplies will be tight. He LOVES chili relish, and last night they had a party at which he served some of the spicy red tomato salsa I canned last week with chips and other snacks. His wife asked if the salsa was hot, and he told her to just try some on a chip - he about cried, he was laughing so hard at her reaction. If she thinks that's hot, she'd better stay out of the chili relishes.

Edit: We just chopped the habanero peppers and Russian garlic in our mini food-processor and the air is so laden with capsaicin, it feels like the cops just pepper-sprayed someone. This is going to be one very potent little batch of chili relish - perhaps two 1/2 cup jelly jars at most.

 

[Math Jeans]

Wow. I got to try some of that habanero relish ;-). The spiciest salsa that I hav access to is store bought hot salsa which I drown in cayenne pepper. I got to step up :D.

 

[turbo]

Habanero relish is easy.

Get a couple of dozen habanero peppers and a whole bulb of garlic. Remove the stems from the peppers, leaving the seeds, placentas, etc intact (that's where the heat is!), separate and peel the cloves of garlic and chop the peppers and garlic thoroughly in a food processor. Cook the chopped stuff in about a cup of vinegar, until it's the consistency you want, and add about a tsp each of salt and sugar, and a couple of tbs of molasses. Spoon into sterilized jelly jars, top with sterilized lids and rings and process the sealed jars in boiling water for 20 minutes. You might get up to 4 little 1/2 cup jars of relish, depending on the size of the habaneros.

 

[Math Jeans]

mmmm. Sounds great. I wonder if it can work as pasta sauce .

 

[turbo]

mmmm. Sounds great. I wonder if it can work as pasta sauce .

We use it IN pasta sauce, not as a sauce in itself. I love meat, onions, green peppers, garlic, etc in a simmered-down sauce of our home-grown tomatoes, and we use the habanero/jalapeno relishes quite liberally to heat up the sauce. If you get habaneros like ours (Carribean Reds) they are off the chart in heat compared to jalapeno, but the jalapeno peppers have such a nice flavor that I like to use them in spaghetti sauce, too. In fact one of my favorite chili relishes is a mix of equal parts jalapeno, habanero, and lipstick chilis. The lipsticks are very decorative and colorful and they grow with the fruits pointing up. My sister-in-law wants to adopt one or two of those plants before hard frost and grow them in a container in her house.

 

[Math Jeans]

We use it IN pasta sauce, not as a sauce in itself. I love meat, onions, green peppers, garlic, etc in a simmered-down sauce of our home-grown tomatoes, and we use the habanero/jalapeno relishes quite liberally to heat up the sauce. If you get habaneros like ours (Carribean Reds) they are off the chart in heat compared to jalapeno, but the jalapeno peppers have such a nice flavor that I like to use them in spaghetti sauce, too. In fact one of my favorite chili relishes is a mix of equal parts jalapeno, habanero, and lipstick chilis. The lipsticks are very decorative and colorful and they grow with the fruits pointing up. My sister-in-law wants to adopt one or two of those plants before hard frost and grow them in a container in her house.

Can the habanero relish be used as straight up salsa with chips?

 

[turbo]

Can the habanero relish be used as straight up salsa with chips?

It really depends how much heat you can tolerate. With our hot home-grown habaneros, I doubt that you'd dip it like salsa. At least not more than once.

You've got to realize that cayenne pepper is not really that hot, crushed red pepper is not too hot, nor is Tobasco. Lots of people think jalapenos are mild at maybe 2500-8000 Scoville units (I am one of them, and love to make poppers out of them), Tobasco and cayenne peppers may run from 30,000-50,000 Scoville units, and the hotter varieties of habaneros are over 10x hotter than that. In fact, our habaneros look just like the Red Savinas on this page, which may explain why they are so much more potent than the ones in the supermarket.

http://www.thescarms.com/hotstuff/pepperfacts.htm

 

[Math Jeans]

It really depends how much heat you can tolerate. With our hot home-grown habaneros, I doubt that you'd dip it like salsa. At least not more than once.

lol. So you use red habaneros and not orange ones?

 

[turbo]

lol. So you use red habaneros and not orange ones?

I like to let them ripen fully, but the Maine climate does not allow me to fully ripen the whole crop, so we have to back down and process some orange and green ones, too, as frost threatens. I'm thinking of doing some large-container planting on our back deck next year to give them as much reflected sun and heat as I can, just to see if I can get a higher percentage of them to ripen together = bigger batches of relishes.

 

[Math Jeans]

Well. I'll make up some of the relish as soon as I can and give you the results once iv gotten the materials for it. But ur talkin so someone who eats plain habaneros . I can't wait.

 

[turbo]

Well, we ran out of habanero sauce earlier this year and had to resort to using peppers from the store, which are WAY wimpy compared to the ones on our garden. That relish from store-bought habaneros, you can eat on chips, crackers, etc as a snack with cheese, oysters, etc. Tasty, but not blistering hot. Our home-grown habanero relish will make you break out in a sweat, even if your mouth can stand the heat. Beware! (see the link I posted a few posts ago) Pepper vary greatly in hotness, even within types/species - if you can eat raw habaneros from a store, you would be well-advised to approach ours with some caution.

 

[turbo]

Today, I processed a huge bag of sweet corn that my sister-in-law gave us last night, so I was shucking, boiling, slicing, and freezing this afternoon. She didn't leave empty-handed - we picked a large plastic shopping bag of apples from our largest apple tree and she'll be making pies, breads, and tarts for a while. While I was shucking corn, my father came down with a bag of buttercup squash that are too large for a single person to cook and eat, and we will supply him with more reasonable-sized squash as ours mature. While we were talking in the driveway, my vegetarian/organic gardening neighbor stopped by with his dog, and I gave him a couple of little jars of the new habanero relish. It's fall and the food is flying!

When my wife got home from work, she picked all the red lipstick peppers and a few jalapenos, so I made up another batch of chili relish using those and lots of Russian garlic. I may have to save a jar for Christmas - the bright red lipsticks and the rich green jalapenos look very festive. Not blistering hot, but pretty darned hot, and very flavorful. I dropped off a jar of that at my neighbor's place tonight - we owe him, since he is providing all our German and Russian garlic cloves to help us establish our own sustainable yearly garlic crop.

 

[Math Jeans]

I would love to live on your block. So jealous.

 

[turbo]

Well there are about 10 houses on this 3-mile stretch of road, so I don't know if you could call it a block.

 

[Math Jeans]

well. my main point was...I want your food.

 

[Math Jeans]

Habanero relish is easy.

Get a couple of dozen habanero peppers and a whole bulb of garlic. Remove the stems from the peppers, leaving the seeds, placentas, etc intact (that's where the heat is!), separate and peel the cloves of garlic and chop the peppers and garlic thoroughly in a food processor. Cook the chopped stuff in about a cup of vinegar, until it's the consistency you want, and add about a tsp each of salt and sugar, and a couple of tbs of molasses. Spoon into sterilized jelly jars, top with sterilized lids and rings and process the sealed jars in boiling water for 20 minutes. You might get up to 4 little 1/2 cup jars of relish, depending on the size of the habaneros.

Well, I just ran into a problem. My parents won't allow me to do the canning process (mainly because one of my relatives is a biologist and now they are paranoid about bacteria), so if I make a small batch and eat it within a couple of days, could I avoid it?

 

[Math Is Hard]

Wow. I got to try some of that habanero relish ;-). The spiciest salsa that I hav access to is store bought hot salsa which I drown in cayenne pepper. I got to step up :D.

I knew you were one of us right away.

We have some serious hotsauce/salsa fans here.

 

[turbo]

Well, I just ran into a problem. My parents won't allow me to do the canning process (mainly because one of my relatives is a biologist and now they are paranoid about bacteria), so if I make a small batch and eat it within a couple of days, could I avoid it?

The little canning jars are made for canning and freezing. Make as much as you want, and freeze it. Take one jar at a time out of the freezer for use and keep it refrigerated - you'll be fine. The thing about bacteria is that if you keep the food chilled, the bacteria can't gain a foothold or multiply.

The concern about home-canning is that you are going to store those jars of food at room temperature, and if you haven't properly processed the food and sterilized the jars and lids, some bacteria can multiply and produce toxins. Probably the worst one is listeria, that thrives in de-oxygenated environments. This is not a concern with frozen foods, so have your parents talk to the biologist and confirm what I have told you, and they'll probably let you use the alternate method of preservation - freezing. Good luck.

If you want to make up really small batches, refrigerate it, and use it in a timely fashion, you are no more at risk of food poisoning that you are from eating some salad or casserole from the fridge that is a few days old, especially since the vinegar drives the pH so low that most bacteria can't get a foothold, anyway, and you're boiling the relish to cook it. Normal kitchen hygiene is sufficient to keep you safe if you aren't going to jar it and store it at room temperature. We HAVE to can our salsas, because there is no other reasonable way to store it. We already have two chest freezers full and the big freezer in our fridge is full of food, so cupboards and pantries and tables down cellar have to be our storage facilities. If I shoot a deer this year, we may have to shuffle a lot of food to my father's freezer to make room for the venison.

 

[Math Jeans]

The little canning jars are made for canning and freezing. Make as much as you want, and freeze it. Take one jar at a time out of the freezer for use and keep it refrigerated - you'll be fine. The thing about bacteria is that if you keep the food chilled, the bacteria can't gain a foothold or multiply.

The concern about home-canning is that you are going to store those jars of food at room temperature, and if you haven't properly processed the food and sterilized the jars and lids, some bacteria can multiply and produce toxins. Probably the worst one is listeria, that thrives in de-oxygenated environments. This is not a concern with frozen foods, so have your parents talk to the biologist and confirm what I have told you, and they'll probably let you use the alternate method of preservation - freezing. Good luck.

If you want to make up really small batches, refrigerate it, and use it in a timely fashion, you are no more at risk of food poisoning that you are from eating some salad or casserole from the fridge that is a few days old, especially since the vinegar drives the pH so low that most bacteria can't get a foothold, anyway, and you're boiling the relish to cook it. Normal kitchen hygiene is sufficient to keep you safe if you aren't going to jar it and store it at room temperature. We HAVE to can our salsas, because there is no other reasonable way to store it. We already have two chest freezers and the big freezer in our fridge full of food, so cupboards and pantries and tables down cellar have to be our storage facilities. If I shoot a deer this year, we may have to shuffle a lot of food to my father's freezer to make room for the venison.

So I can make a full batch and put it in a can, but freeze it instead of having to process it? Then when I'm about to eat it I can just stick some in the fridge?

 

[turbo]

So I can make a full batch and put it in a can, but freeze it instead of having to process it? Then when I'm about to eat it I can just stick some in the fridge?

That's the idea. If you can get a case of the little Ball jelly jars with lids and rings, you'll be all set to experiment with chili relishes. The jars are designed to be used for freezing or canning. Freezing the relishes promptly after you jar them, and keeping them refrigerated as you thaw and use them is a good way to go. My wife and I just don't have the freezer capacity to put up all our pickles, salsas, and chili relishes, so we can't use that method, unless we have a walk-in freezer installed. That picture I posted was of our smallest cupboard. We have another much larger one under the counter that is full, and we are putting salsas and other processed canned food in our ceiling-to-floor pantry cupboard with sliding doors.

 

[Math Jeans]

I'm going to attempt to get the materials for the habanero relish this weekend (I know they arn't as good as home grown. Don't rub it in). But before I do, do you have a really really hot salsa recepes we well? (Tell me if I'm being too nosy). .

 

[turbo]

It's really pretty loose around here. My wife and I just grab what we've got and go with it. We might have a few gallons of red tomatoes or green ones, and we'll scald them in boiling water then shock them in cold water. That makes peeling them easier. I think it's helpful to quarter the tomatoes so they de-water more easily, and start simmering them down with a few cups of vinegar. Once the tomatoes are simmered down to about the consistency that you'd consider using for salsa you chop and add onions and every kind of peppers (bell, sweet, and chilies) you can get with LOTS of garlic and some salt. Simmer until the chilies are getting cooked down and incorporated, and then season to taste. You may want to add more hot stuff, maybe some herbs, and CERTAINLY some cilantro before canning. This can take hours spread over a couple of days, so save your fresh herbs for the last hurrah, so their flavors will be strongest in the finished product.

People up here run rafting companies, guided snowmobile tours, etc to encourage tourism. Maybe I should start a school of salsa... With all the variables, there's no real formula, but until you've done it a few times how do you know what works?

David, if you lived here and wanted some of our hot foods, I would make you tend and weed my peppers, and harvest them, but in return I'd teach you how to make them into fantastic foods that you cannot find in stores anywhere.