Hot Pepper Sauce

I love hot pepper sauce. I get lots of compliments on my sauce. I've never found any like mine. My secret? Smoke. I smoke my peppers for 8 hours on a light to medium smoke.
I use mulberry wood usually, or oak or hickory. Really I use whatever is handy. Maybe the wood makes a difference, but not to me.
Here is how to make my hot sauce--follow the Red Hot Sauce in the Ball Canning Cookbook. It calls for 1.5 cups of chopped hot peppers (about 24). I just toss 24 habaneros in the smoker for each batch (I made a quadruple batch the first time so I used 100 peppers). While they are smoking, feel free to also smoke a huge chunk of mammal or some cheese or whatever--the peppers won't mind. Take the peppers from the smoker after 8 hours and let them cool a bit.
Put on gloves (yes, even if you are really tough. this is concentrated!) and pull the stems from the peppers and discard the stems. Be very careful! If you rub this stuff in your eyes (or, ahem, other sensitive areas) you will go to the emergency room. This is a really hot pepper that has been concentrated over a long period of time and will give you chemical burns if you aren't careful.
I run the peppers through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins. I would be interested to know if anyone has a better way. I've thought about just adding the entire pepper to the tomato sauce, simmering for a while, chopping with a blender or immersion blender, and then straining. Seems that I would retain more flavor and I wouldn't have to clean up the food mill. Cleaning the food mill is a bother and all the stuff I'm cleaning off of it is good to eat.
Then just follow the Ball Canning Cookbook recipe.
Man, it is good! The pepper with the smoke is divine.
Want it hotter? More peppers. Milder? Less peppers or vary the pepper variety. I've made it with jalapenos and it is still really good. Want some subtle flavor differences? Use a mix of peppers. I've added some bell peppers and it sweetens it a little.
Anyone have any other methods of making hot sauce?

Vanilla Beans

I really like to use Vanilla Beans in cooking. Custard/pudding made with vanilla beans is much better tasting than ones made with vanilla extract. This applies to homemade ice cream as well!
We really like to use the vanilla pods after we scrape out all the vanilla seeds. Using a part that would normally be discarded just seems to make the entire exercise more productive.
Vanilla beans in the local stores are so high as to take your breath away. I order vanilla beans from eBay. I think I bought something like 35 pods for maybe $10-$15. One pod in some stores is $8! Just search eBay; there are lots of sellers. Look for one with a good selling history on eBay.
There are different grades of vanilla pods. I haven't researched this lately. If someone runs across a good summary of the grades, please post the link in comments. I think I bought a grade B, which as I remember is just as good but not as long. Since I never serve a whole bean, I don't really care how long it is.

Vanilla Sugar / Powder

Years ago my Wife, Sister, and Mother returned from a shopping trip to the city with Vanilla powder. We used it on lots of things, anything to which you wanted to add vanilla but did not want to add liquid. We dusted it on things primarily, like cupcakes, brownies, etc.
We can't buy vanilla powder locally, but have to get it from Kansas City, so I attempted to make some.
Ingredients were corn starch and dextrose and vanilla. I mixed corn starch and dextrose (from the local bulk store) together and added vanilla bean pods (after I scraped the vanilla bean seeds from the pods for some other recipe). I really like the vanilla powder. I made up several quart jars and gave them away. Mom quickly says, "no, no, we are okay on vanilla powder" when I try to give her some, so I don't know if she doesn't like it or really has plenty. Haven't heard from anyone else. Admittedly it isn't something to get really excited about, and the 2 quart jars we kept have lasted for a few years. I mean, you use a tablespoon or so at a time (sometimes just a fraction of a teaspoon) so it last a looonnnggg time.
I really like the vanilla pod flavor. It's very "natural" tasting, in that all you really get is the vanilla without any carrier.
I think if I was doing this all over again, I would just get a pint jar of powdered sugar and add my spent vanilla pods. No real reason to mix corn starch and dextrose, unless you want to tone down the sweetening.
We also add vanilla pods to granulated sugar--really nice in coffee or when you want to dust with granulated sugar.
Anyone have any experience with vanilla powder or vanilla sugar?

Wedding Reception Cake

 

Here is my pixie making a wedding reception cake this summer. Hours of work and attention to detail. We usually bake the cakes a day or two ahead of time, wrap them in plastic and freeze them. Makes decoration day go easier since you do the hot work ahead of time and have the kitchen cool to decorate, and because you divide the work between the days. Also, the cakes don't crumb off as easy, making it easier to apply icing. She is an artist with a piping bag. And doesn't she look lovely?

Garden Harvest

 

A bit of harvest from the garden during last summer. 

I've had a lot of success with bell peppers over the past couple of years. I don't mess with much water to them. They hang around on the plant a long time in case I don't get to them for a few days. All I need to do is keep the weeds down. Last year I used agricultural plastic with drip tape underneath. This year I use the drip tape and some wood mulch. Had to rescue the plants from weeds a couple times, but they forgave me and gave us lots of peppers. Trudy chops them and loads them into gallon freezer bags and tosses them into the freezer.

Love the yellow grape tomatoes. I eat all I want in the garden and bring the rest to the house.

Okra is yummy fresh in the garden, nice and green and no time to go slimy. Sure it is good coated and fried, but it is good in soups and oven-roasted whole. We like to dry okra in our food dehydrator and store in a mason jar on the counter. Looks pretty and nice to toss into soups.

Purple hull peas were new for us. Not sure we'll repeat this next year. They go dry too quickly for me, on the vine. Garden plants need to be more flexible of my schedule.

Onions, beets, and maybe a potato or two in the back.

Blackberry Wine

 

Grew the 30 pounds of blackberries on the farm that went into this wine. This is my first wine so I don't know how it will turn out. Since it takes about a year to find out, I think I'll start another batch in the meantime.

30 lbs fresh blackberries

2 lbs raisins

11 lbs sugar

water to make 5 gallons

5 lbs overripe bananas (steeped them for a while and used the "broth" and discarded those nasty overripe bananas)

1 packet Cote des Blanc yeast

Tannin

Acid Blend

Pectic enzyme

Yeast Nutrient

Was concerned about how to break up 30 lbs of blackberries. Froze them as I harvested, which broke some cells. Used an immersion blender to finish the job.

Fermented vigorously for 7 days. By "vigorously" I mean that I had to divide it into two buckets because one 7-gallon bucket couldn't contain it.

Racked off into this container. How are you supposed to get all that fruit out of the primary fermenter (bucket)? I don't have a strainer that will hold a couple gallons of fruit. I used a spider to fish out as much as possible and then strained the rest, twice, to clean it up. Could use an easier process.

Due to rack off again 1/10/11. Then it sits for 8 months to a year. I figure it will be ready for my birthday in November.

Grilled Turkey

 

Grilled half of a pastured-raised turkey. Brined the turkey for a day in the refrigerator. Grilled on a bare rack for a while, using indirect heat, and then put foil underneath to prevent burning the bottom. Used some mulberry chips grown on the farm to give the meat a bit of smoky flavor. Inserted a meat thermometer and grilled until just right. Threw a sweet potato from the garden on there to keep the turkey company. Turned out perfect. And here is where the turkey came from. Raised on grass and local grain with no drugs or animal by-products.

Caramel Machiatto

I've just started making espresso drinks. This is a Caramel Machiatto--steamed milk on the bottom, a layer of dark, rich coffee in the middle, and foamed milk on the top. What's really nice about this is that as you drink you get the dark coffee first, followed by the sweetened, flavored steamed milk. Rich, dark start with a sweet creamy finish.

Buttermilk Fudge

 

Buttermilk fudge from the Southern Living cookbook. Starts out white in the pan (from the buttermilk) and turns to this delicious brown as it cooks. I think toasting the pecans before adding them to the fudge makes all the difference. You can smell the nuts when you open the storage container. We kept tasting the fudge and it almost didn't make it to the party. I eventually ended up cutting the pieces in half so there would be enough to go around.

Gingerbread Castle

I made gingerbread in a mold pan. It looked pretty interesting but for pure eating enjoyment I think I would go with a more uniform shaped pan.
I expected the cake to stick pretty badly, but it came right out. It seemed to me that there was a lot of variability in the consistency of the cake, likely due to the odd shapes and differing thicknesses. It did look pretty interesting. I dusted it with vanilla powder that I made a long time ago (another post...).
I just printed out Nigella Lawson's Guinness Gingerbread recipe. Sounds yummy.