Making Hot Sauce

This is sooooo simple, you're gonna love it!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups assorted chiles, freshly picked, cleaned, and stemmed (mostly red, but you can mix a few greenies in for spice...experiment with what you like, but "fleshier" chiles make a smoother sauce.  Also, I leave the seeds intact....too much bother to take them out, and I think they add a nice flavor.)

• 1 ts kosher salt

• 1/2 onion, red or white

• Juice of 1/2 lime or lemon (I actually prefer lime, but only had lemon for this shoot)

• 3 large cloves Garlic

• 1 Cup White Vinegar, heated to almost boiling (turn your rangehood on for this one...fumes are pretty strong.  I usually use the microwave for about 2 min....be careful though as vinegar boils sooner than water.)

• Freshly ground black pepper

Put it all in a blender and puree until smooth.....may need to scrape it down a couple times.

TIP: be careful when you take the lid off the blender....this stuff will burn your nosehairs out.

Cool, bottle, and age.  You "can" start using it right away, but it will have a definite "edge" to it.   Besides, it's still warm so it'll just be hot and salty.  Makes about 3 cups of hot sauce.  I normally use a vinegar bottle with the shaker top enlarged to let the solids come out with the sauce.  The rest, I put in a nice jar, like the spaghetti sauce jar in the picture.

After a night in the fridge, it's ready for using.  As it ages, it will mellow and blend, but loses some heat.  You'll find that when "fresh", it has a hard bite up front.  But as it ages a week or so it's a nice overall heat that you'll love.  I used to buy a bunch of the big Tabasco bottles at the membership clubs.....but now, I make my own and am totally spoiled on it.

Enjoy!