Some like it HOT!

I have a penchant for hot peppers! I do like spicy foods but my liking for these jewels are more for the health properties that they possess. Hot peppers contain the wonderful chemical called capsaicin. It is actually this chemical that gives the peppers their "heat"! It is the capsaicin that causes the burning sensation in your mouth when you bite into a hot pepper. The only pepper that does not contain this chemical is the Bell Pepper and that is because this pepper is a cultivar of another and has a recessive gene that eliminates the hot "taste". Capsaicin is highly valued in herbal remedies as a circulatory stimulant and an analgesic. It is this same chemical that is the base for the "pepper" spray that is used by the police force as a non-lethal method to incapacitate a person. But..as I said..I like the peppers mainly for their medicinal uses!

In the garden, the several varieties of hot peppers that I planted this Spring have finally taken off and started to grow. The rains must be agreeing with the plants that it is time to set fruit..and set they are! It looks as if this will be a good year for peppers with a bumper crop. With this new found abundance, I needed to discover a method of preserving hot peppers. Once before we had so many that we did not know what to do with all of them. We gave peppers to anyone who would accept them, we froze some (BIG mistake!) and we tried our hand at making hot sauce! About the BIG mistake..never freeze hot peppers along side of anything that you do not want hot! Everything in our freezer took on the unmistakable burn of hot peppers! (Habanero flavored ice cream is not that tasty!) Perhaps this was due to me using freezer bags and not some sturdier container but I vowed then and there never to freeze hot peppers again! As for the hot sauce..it was a success in flavor but a word of advice...never cook it inside! My oldest son and I cleaned gallons of peppers and started cooking them in a large stainless steel pot on the stove. After just a few minutes though, our eyes were burning like fire! In an attempt to save our hot sauce and our eyes, we transferred the sauce to two large electric slowcookers and moved them to the porch. That sauce smelled up the entire yard! Years later, anything we cooked in the slowcookers had the distinct flavor of hot peppers just like everything in the freezer!

This year, I am trying to dry the peppers on a rack. I do not want to put them in the dehydrator for the same reason as the slowcookers! I have skewered a couple dozen of the assorted peppers on stainless steel skewer and placed them on the same drying rack that I have been using for drying the persimmon leaves. I am hoping that I have enough space between the two that my tea is not fiery hot! Come to think about it..pickled peppers might be the next attempt at preserving my hot peppers. Hopefully, pickling will not lessen the capsaicin strength in the peppers. Pickled peppers, anyone? Where is Peter Piper when you need him??