Homemade heat

November is no place for a hot pepper plant--even indoors. It was time to uproot the last vestiges of my summer pepper experiment and kick my tabasco plant out of its room temperature hotel. But before I did, I decided to make some sauce.

A lot of recipes online seemed pretty basic, but there were the occasional wild card ingredients like lime juice or oak-aged sherry. Others called for fermentation by way of friendly bacteria. Since I was into neither of the above, I went with an Emerill recipe, with a few extra ingredients (1/2 red bell and 1 red carribean habanero!)

The full plant during its latter outdoor days.



The meat and potatoes.



Add onion, garlic, and salt. Saute, add water, then boil for 20 min.



Blend in food processor w/ 1 cup vinegar. Really liked the hot + sweet taste, but it did come out a bit thin--and orange. Overall, decent sauce!

A sultry addiction

I've been addicted to Cholula for a while. I once considered ordering a case...never got around to it though. It really does go on everything, but I find that it pairs extremely well with Goldfish crackers. Odd, but really good!

The perversion of the panko

Hunger can make a person do strange things. A good while back, I learned that cracker crumbs are completely different from panko bread crumbs, or anything fit to bread fish. Cook this for another soul and you're sure to be voted off the island.





Ice cream scooper/cracker crusher...really.

Nuking the nuclear pepper

I thought that maybe the heat of the grill would mellow the heat of this habanero. Not so.



Mission successful, mouth hot.

Cardboard, no. Nutritious? Si.

Ok, so I didn't cook with absolute stupid, but I ate with it. I had no idea how this Quinoa recipe would taste--from everything I had heard, I wasn't expecting much from this ancient, grain-like, South-American seed. It turns out that when you add it to garlic, spinach, tomatoes, walnuts, the kitchen sink, and parmigiano-reggiano cheese, it's pretty damn delicious. And with a ridiculous amount of protein, vitamins, and minerals, it's the closest food gets to Red Bull.

And this is what happens

when you have too many vegetables, and vegetable-looking fruits.

This is what happens

when you run low on food. Or you've just cracked.

Pictured: veggie burgers (2), fried egg, avocado. Not pictured: neglected avocado.

Eggs with eight legs

Some claim it's a Mid-Atlantic ambrosia. I say "eh."

Fennel failure

After hearing "fennel" repeatedly mentioned during one session of channel surfing, I decided to give it a go. At first glance, this veggie looks sort of like a celery-stalked onion--and since sauteed onions go well with a big juicy steak, I decided to embark on that plan of attack. The result? Well, well-done $9 steak (oops) with a side of licorice-tasting crunch. Maybe I don't know what to eat it with (I've since seen pork and fennel), or maybe I simply don't like it.

But all is not lost. I did learn that fennel is high in vitamin C, and is one of the herbs that is traditionally used to make absinthe.

Inadequate meat

These "sliders" from last summer aren't my creation (thankfully), but they still make me feel better about my own learning experiences in the kitchen.