Muy Picante

Because we were buying Trader Joe's hot sauce by the case to feed Kelly's spicy food addiction, this year we decided it might be more economical to grow our own hot peppers. We put in four varieties: three kinds of chiles and a jalapeño. Hot peppers all look pretty, but this year's pageant winner by a long shot was the tobasco chile.


Both of the tobasco chiles we planted were huge and covered with hundreds of tiny peppers by the end of the season. Just before it started getting frosty at night, we
pulled out the plants so we could dry out the peppers inside. Here's Kelly carrying a branch (and to give you an idea of how huge they got, he's 6'2"):



I think the plan for these is that they will be dried out and ground up into little chile flakes, which will presumably be incredibly hot. Just now I asked Kelly, "How hot would you say those little peppers are?" "Wicked," he said. "When I ate one, I was in a desperate position." It's true, I watched.

The rest of the peppers were made into hot sauce, and Kelly will probably post about that process soon; I can't even look at the pictures without my eyes watering and my tongue seizing up.