Smoked Cayenne Pepper and Roasted Garlic Hot Sauce

Red and yellow Cayenne peppers,
Fajita Bell peppers, small, red bell peppers,
onion, garlic and end-of-the-season tomatoes
and three carrots (not shown) go into this
 scalp-sweating hot sauce!

   This year we are growing cayenne peppers in the garden.  One of the great things about cayenne peppers is the amount of yield a couple of plants will give you.  I planted both red, standard US style cayennes and something new I had never seen before.  A yellow colored cayenne pepper from Central America.  At the end of the day the red peppers are larger and produce at least twice as many peppers (probably more) per plant.  Cayenne has a lot of uses and I have pretty much run out of ideas for using them up.  I have dried peppers and crushed them for crushed peppers to add to any dish, like pizza, and powdered them for use in recipes and against ants.  So I tried something new; hot sauce. First I looked at a bunch of recipes on line, on YouTube, etc, and I figured out pretty quickly that hot sauce is very versatile.  Stay tuned for my chili paste!  That's next, maybe.  If you like the roasted chili, Thai stye hot sauce, this is for you.
   I smoked about a pound of cayennes, three fajita bell peppers, and a couple of small "pimento" red bell peppers over hickory smoke in a wire basket for about two hours.  The fajita bell peppers come from Bonnie Plants and taste wonderful!  I'll be growing more next year. The small red "pimento" peppers have an awesome taste as well.  Smoking them over hickory smoke gives them a flavor that will make you want to eat them before they ever get to the sauce.  Some of the skins may blacken a little but that is fine.
   I roasted the garlic head whole as I smoked the peppers.  I cut the bottom from the head, drizzled it in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, added about a teaspoon of kosher salt, a sprinkle of white pepper, wrapped it up in tin foil and placed it near the fire.  In fact, I placed it on top of the cast Iron box that holds the wood for smoking.  When it was done the meat of the garlic cloves were gooey balls of yumminess. Wait until it cools to peel it. 
   Once your peppers are smoked and your garlic is roasted, which takes about two hours or four to five beers, let the peppers and garlic cool while you prepare the other ingredients.  Cut up a large white onion into large pieces, peel and chop your carrots into chunks.  Peel your garlic.  I dare you not to lick your fingers!  Take about two pounds of tomatoes, peel them by blanching them in boiling water for two minutes then plunging them into ice water and peel off the split skins.  I am using end-of-the-season tomatoes from my garden.  In fact, the only thing that didn't come from my garden is the garlic.
   Put two cups of white vinegar into a stock put.  Add one and one half cups of water and an 8 oz. can of original V8 juice.  Turn the heat to high and start the mixture to boil.  Add about a tablespoon of kosher salt to the boil, then put in the onions and carrots, then the tomatoes, smoked peppers and the roasted garlic.  Let the mixture boil, then place the heat on medium and low-boil it for an hour.  Your house will smell so good the neighbors will come running over to see what's for supper.
   Some of the recipes I saw on-line used pectin to add "body" or thickening to the mixture.  None of them used tomatoes. Use tomatoes.  They taste better and will add the body the others were looking for but didn't know how to get.  When the SHTF, you will be hurting for pectin, not for tomatoes.  You will be the best fed, post-apocalyptic family for miles around.  Maybe you can barter some hot sauce for .22 bullets to shoot small game with.
   Once your mixture is boiled and your house smells like heaven, let the mixture cool to room temperature.  I let mine cool overnight on the stove.  I dreampt all night of eating at Ralph and Kacoo's in Baton Rouge.
   Take your cooled mixture and place some into the blender.  Blend it until it is smooth, them strain it through a wire strainer with a large wooden spoon into a large pot.  This will keep the remaining whole seeds and the larger pieces of pepper skin from getting into the final sauce.  Repeat until it is all blended and strained.  Bottle it in your favorite bottles and refrigerate.  I tend to re-use bottles I like.  In the picture is a re-purposed olive oil bottle with a wine bottle cork in it.  I also used an empty soy sauce bottle and standard canning jars.
   This sauce has a that sumptuous smoked pepper flavor that makes you eat more than you know you should.  It has a good heat, no doubt, but draws you in with the garlic and smoke.  It is not stupid hot.  Man vs. Food will not be doing a challenge on this sauce.  But you may very well wish you had stopped before you did!  Enjoy. 
   

  

Breaking trust with the American people

A Dark Day in Washington

The United States Congress, in collusion with the White House, has decided that their political infighting is more important than executing the duties to which we, the American people, elected them.  No one party or independent representative or senator is immune.  Not one.  The United States government has broken trust with us.  Again. 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, trust can be defined as, "(1) : a charge or duty imposed in faith or confidence or as a condition of some relationship (2) : something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another" 

We sent them to Washington to execute the duties of looking after the affairs of this country, according to our standards, by which they campaigned and were elected to represent us. 

Sequestration is upon us.  A nation at war will allow its elected representatives to severely damage the ability of the nation's war fighting men and women to execute their constitutional duties to provide for the common defense.  All in the name of partisan politics.  Out going Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, 
“There isn't anybody I've talked to on Capitol Hill
 that doesn't think this is crazy. No one that I've
talked to doesn't think that this a dangerous tool to
impact the country."
 And Panetta is one of them, a hand picked Obama cabinet
member. A man who has made his living in Washington
politics.  A former Clinton White House member.  His 
politics represent the conventional, left-wing, tax and spend,
big government, Democrat Party ideals of the post Vietnam 
era.  If even he can see the danger and articulate it clearly,
what is wrong with the rest of our government?  
The money to pay for sequestration will come, according to 
Secretary Panetta, from readiness.  The seven members of 
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a letter to Congress, said,

"Should this looming readiness crisis be left unaddressed, we will have to ground aircraft, return ships to port, and stop driving combat vehicles in training. We will also be unable to reset and restore the force's full-spectrum combat capability after over a decade of hard fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan."

At a time in our history when we have numerous military threats looming, our Congress cannot pass a Defense Authorization bill..  Our troops in Afghanistan continue to engage the enemy on a daily basis.  By the end of 2014, we will need to remove vast amounts of military personnel and hardware from Afghanistan.  That massive redeployment of forces has yet to be paid for.

North Korea is threatening to attack.  Nothing new, of course.  But do not be lulled into complacency by the fact that they have not done it - YET.  North Korea has the will and capability to kick off a regional conflict that will engulf Asia and the United States.  They have yet to demonstrate the intent, but they have stated their intent.  We are much closer to conflict in Asia than most are willing to believe.  

But Congress cannot pass a bill to fund Defense.  "Provide for the common defense" - Failure.

The conflict in Syria is out of control.  The US Government does not know what to do.  What it does in regard to the Syrian conflict is strategically unsound.  According to numerous press reports, including the New York Times, commie rag that it is, the US government is not sending arms directly to Syrian rebel groups.  We are, instead, providing support to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are shipping arms to the rebels.  Unfortunately, the rebels groups that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are supplying are the very hard-line Islamist groups the United States does not want in power in Syria.  The more moderate groups, those who support a broad coalition government in Syria, are left out in the cold.  Groups like Al Qaida in Iraq, and numerous other Al Qaida affiliated armed groups, are operating in Syria under the banner of "Anti-Assad Syrian Rebels".  The longer the conflict continues, the stronger their influence grows.  Hezbollah is running rampant across Syria, and always has.  Iran is sending "volunteers" and weapons into Syria to fight for Assad.  The last thing Iran wants is to lose it's access to Syria.  The Israelis have conducted bombing raids into Syria to keep Syria's chemical arsenal from falling into the hands of Hezbollah.  At least Israel has a clear goal that supports US interests in the conflict.  We don't.  Iran promises retaliation against Israel.  They have the capability, the will, and have stated their intent to do so.  Let us not act surprised when they do it.  The potential for Israeli intervention to control Syria's WMD is realistic and present.  If Israel is forced to react to protect itself the United States WILL be drawn into the conflict.  And the conflict will be largely conventional, requiring bombers, fighter jets, massive amounts of airlift, missiles of many varieties, Naval task forces, tanks, armored personnel carriers and troops.  All of which are now gutted and not ready for war.  American military equipment will not be ready.  American military personnel will not be ready.  The American military will be thrown into the conflict, ready or not.  Much of our equipment will fail.  Many of us will die.

But Congress cannot pass a bill to fund Defense.  "Provide for the common defense" - Failure.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz in response to the United State's policy of isolation and sanctions against them.  It has promised to do so if any strikes against their nuclear program were to occur.  Iran has the capability to engage us in the Arabian Gulf and inflict extensive damage to our Naval capabilities.  A war game conducted last spring in the Pentagon resulted in escalation with Iran and ended with massive US military engagement.  The possibility exists, may even be considered probable.  Fortunately for Iran, unfortunately for the United States, were are not going to be ready for a massive military engagement.  Iran will get its way.  If we are forced into conflict our equipment will not be properly maintained.  Our equipment operators will not be properly trained.  Our equipment will fail.  We will die. 

Should any of our global adversaries decide to push their agendas in the near future the US will be incapable of responding in a manner that can guarantee success for our nation.  Incapable.  UNREADY.  

Both China and Russia are bullying Japan over islands in dispute.  Should the US wish to respond in defense of Japan, we will be UNREADY.

NATO might as well fold up and go home.  Article 5 will be meaningless.  Russia will be the strongman of Europe and Eurasia.  The United States will not be able to respond if Russia decides to push its agenda in the Baltics or Central Europe.  Europe should get used to buying heating oil from Russia at inflated prices.  The country of Georgia should be prepared to have a Russian-backed regime change.  The military might of the United States is the backbone of NATO.  Plain and simple.  No other NATO country has the capability to conduct military operations in Europe with any chance of success.  Only the participation of the NATO partner countries in alliance with massive US military might can prevail in another land war in Europe.  But we are not READY.  

Secretary Panetta also said that allowing sequestration to happen, with its subsequent cuts to Defense, would result in the US becoming a second-rate power.  At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Saudi Arabian General (Prince) Khalid gave a speech, in which he said, "If there is only to be one superpower on earth, thank God it is the United States."  The United States of America is abdicating its superpower status so that two groups of politicians can blame each other for failing to cooperate and pass a budget.  An historic, ground breaking, permanent, appalling change.  The fall of Rome to the barbarians had less impact on the future of the planet.  Utter FAILURE. 

Let there be no doubt; there is blame enough to cover everyone in Congress, but history will record Barack Obama as the president who dropped the ball.  He who, during the presidential debate with his challenger stated the Sequestration would not happen.  Broken trust.  He will go down in history as the man who destroyed America's standing in the world.  There are plenty of conspiracy theorists who will believe it was his intention all along.