Usually when I play with wood, it doesn’t involve vegetables. Moreover, most times I finish in less than a month. Making this solar pepper dryer, though, was a notable exception to both. Part conversation piece, part raisin maker, the box dryer is a cheap way to dry vegetation without sucking juice from a power grid. I swear some of my neighbors thought I was building a coffin when I started. Glaring at them and nodding my head did little to discourage this, but I’m kind of twisted like that.
Oregano-Garlic Green Chile Vinegar: Recipe
I’m not a patient man unless it comes to barbecue. Even then, it’s an internal struggle between my personalities to keep myself from checking the smoker too often. Luckily, you don’t need patience to make good use of your chile harvest. Vinegars, oils, and extracts are all instant gratification for putting hot peppers to good use. This oregano-garlic green chile vinegar recipe is a good one, as are the others in this article.
How-to: Making Chile Powder
Most of us are harvesting our chile bounty right now. If you’re new, the big question confronting you is what to do with all of these pepper pods. Smoke ’em? Dry ’em? Give them away? There’s plenty of information on what to make of pods here but if powder is your poison, here’s what you can do according to the pope.
Spicy Winter Harvest Salad
This marinated spicy salad is rather like the traditional Mexican Christmas Eve Salad and takes advantage of fall vegetables. Substitute celery for the jicama, add oranges or apples, and you have a lower-fat take on a Waldorf salad.
Pumpkin Hot Sauce (Yedubba We’t)
There are many meat-based hot sauces in Africa, but also some distinctly vegetarian sauces such as this Ethiopian one at Fiery Foods Central. Sever this sauce over starchy dishes such as plantains, yams, or rice.
Brilliant Bayou Pumpkin Seed Snack
Ah, Halloween. What better way to bond with kids than overloading on sugar, dressing up in scary costumes, and dining on a pumpkin’s grey matter? Each year, we lobotomize countless Jack O’Lanterns, then roast the yummy seeds in the brain gunk, and feast on them. This pumpkin seed recipe, along with other sizzling holiday snacks, can be found in the article Sizzling Snacks for Holiday Entertaining by Dave DeWitt over at Fiery Foods & Barbecue Central.
Chipotle-Pumpkin Seed Butter
In case you haven’t noticed, the Pope of Peppers re-launched (re-anointed?) the SuperSite as Fiery Foods & Barbecue Central. Everything has been reorganized and it serves as the mothership for our other sites like the Scovie Awards, Dave’s personal blog, our Fiery Foods Show, and, of course, this here lil’ ol’ blog too. Earlier today I was surfing the mothership when I found this great chipotle pumpkin seed recipe just in time for Halloween. It’s an excerpt from Elizabeth Karmel’s Soaked, Slathered, & Seasoned: A Complete Guide to Flavoring Food for the Grill.
