My tastebuds soared into ecstasy the day that my friend Lorna introduced me to hot pepper relish from Bicks. Unfortunately, it’s extremely hard to find in the wild (aka the local Co-ops, Superstore, Wal-mart, etc.) so I went on the hunt for recipes I could use here at home. With the abundance of various hot peppers being grown locally and a few imported as well, I felt confident I’d have no problems sourcing the main ingredient.

I wasn’t satisfied with those I was finding online, and so I turned to Facebook – knowing either my cousin (a veritable wealth of preserving knowledge is stored in her brain) or a certain author/screenwriter/pepper enthusiast would likely come to my rescue… <|;^) And they both did. Sometimes evil plans come together nicely. Teehee. Ahem. My first foray into such delights was using Mike's recipe. With his permission, I've posted the recipe here, with a link to his amazing pepper website where he's got cookbooks AND video demonstrations; sorta folding Monday and Wednesday into an early Thursday post! Oh, and I have to apologize for the pictures; I used the iPod instead of the camera, and they're not so hot. Erm, pun not intended.... Mike’s Hot Pepper Relish

Ingredients

3 cups chopped sweet chili peppers (I used a blend of Californias and Jalapenos in green and red as well as a single Habanero)
3/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 honey)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 small onion, chopped
1 teaspoons ground yellow mustard powder
Salt to taste

 

Directions

Chop peppers, garlic and onion.

 

Add all ingredients to a large pan and heat to medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a light boil.

Reduce heat to low and simmer about 25-30 minutes (because I used honey, I simmered for 45 minutes), or until liquid is reduced and absorbed into the mixture. Add to a jar and allow to cool. Store in the refrigerator.

The jars I used (pictured above) are quite small, holding about a half-cup each. The center jar was only filled half way, and is already almost gone! If I were to make enough of this recipe to actually process for shelf-storage rather than in the fridge, I would probably multiply the ingredients by ten, use half pints, and process for ten minutes after hot-packing the jars.

As I managed to get pepper burns on three fingers of my left hand while chopping this batch, I’d also use a food processor to do the dicing next time!

Look for more of Mike’s recipes (including video demonstrations!) and the cookbooks on his website: Chili Pepper Madness

’til next week…
<3 JL