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One of the most surprising gifts that we received when we moved to California was the ability to grow a garden that actually bears fruit, spices, herbs and vegetables. Back when we lived in Chicago, I was constantly trying to grow plants in our windowsills and even out in the garden during the summer. The problem was a combination of a lack of sunlight, lack of good soil, and most importantly a lack of any knowledge at all about what it takes to grow an edible garden. It was highly discouraging, but even the fragrant basil plant that I brought home regularly from the store would lose it’s will to live in Chicago, it was very sad for the optimistic chef that I am. Luckily, when we moved to our home here in the Central Valley we learned that the first 2 ingredients critical in gardening were plentiful here. We have sunlight for 6 months out of the year (as a side note, this is wonderful, until you get your first A/C bill – at which point we promptly bought Solar Panels – yay!), which is amazing for growing fruit and vegetables that are filled with sweetness. Also, we happened to have purchased a home that used to have cattle and other farm friends so the area where our garden grows has seen decades of fertilization, pretty incredible.
Where we still had some opportunities was in the knowledge acquisition area for gardening, but thankfully for the internet, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. we have been able to become pretty solid gardeners. The first few years were a bit rough, I won’t lie. Of the 15-20 plants we put in during year 1, the only thing I had to show for it were dozens of zucchini, some of which looked more like baseball bats! The second year, I was able to get some peppers going, as well as our trusty zucchini, and a new exciting pepperoncini plant that yielded an incredible amount of those lovely little peppers, but not a whole lot more. The peppers were OK, but tasted pretty bitter, so we had to do some research to understand the issue there. Turns out this was a watering issue, one that was also impacting my cracking tomatoes!
This year, Derek and I are feeling really excited about the state of the garden. He put in a full irrigation system and we are now in a completely different arena of ability to customize and tailor the watering requirements for each of the plans – it’s so exciting! Now that we’re in the heat of the summer, we’re harvesting all kinds of different peppers – Jalapeno, Habanero, Cayenne, Bell and Anaheim. This means that I’m working on new sauces that leverage these delicious vegetables that are loaded with healthy benefits, flavors and spice! The recipe below for my newest creation is the Jalapeno Hot Sauce, which is a riff on the multitude of recipes online for the DIY Cayenne Hot Sauce. There are some really good ones for that recipe, the one that seems to be simplest and also packed with the most flavor is here. http://momskitchencooking.blogspot.com/2010/10/franks-redhot-original-cayenne-pepper.html. I made this one last night as well, our cayennes were starting to dry and look ‘ready’ for preserving, but I will admit I would modify this one next time and add more salt and a pinch of cumin to make it more unique. While it’s definitely great for adding heat, I want to see if I can add more flavor to this one.
Below is the recipe for the Jalapeno Hot Sauce, it’s very simple but this may be our new favorite hot sauce for everything! Hope you try it and let me know how yours turned out – all feedback is appreciated!
