As a child picking peas in the early morning dawn was not my favorite thing to do. I really dreaded even more the bushels and bushels of peas I had to shell at my grandfather's each summer to help stock his freezer. The only time I ever talked back to the man who was my second father was when he strolled in for lunch from his work at the Gulf Oil Distributorship and asked me how many peas my brother and I had gotten shelled that afternoon. After my not so smart comment he smiled, laughed and told me he'd have me another bushel or two to shell the next day. My brother was furious with me...and I'll never forget that moment.
Looking back now I realize it instilled character, helped feed my family and now as an adult we shell our own (or sometimes get the pea sheller to do the work - thank you Gayla)!
We love our black-eyed, purple hull and cream peas in the south! And the recipe I share with you today is probably the easiest one to date on The Ranch Kitchen site. I've made this Hot Pepper Sauce usually every other year from the peppers from our garden. Family and friends get these as gifts to use as a sauce over their peas or to use in their cooking. This Hot Pepper Sauce is not my original recipe and only God knows where it came from, but it's how we make it and hope you'll give it a try.
You can use any variety of hot peppers. We used peppers my Audrey and I had picked from our garden like Anaheim, Serrano, jalapenos and some Cowhorns. She decided to make it a game and see who could find the largest pepper. You'll see her large, red Anaheim pepper in the picture above. She won!
For this pepper sauce today we even placed a few sweet banana peppers in the jars for the light green coloring. As we filled the jars we were careful to make them eye appealing by spreading out the red and green colored peppers so that you could see them from the outside of the jar. But, make sure you wear gloves as you make this or immediately scrub your hands well after dealing with hot peppers. A touch to your eyes will make you realize that you don't want to do that again and it's never fun get pepper juice in an open cut or your eyes!
As an added touch we placed rafia straw around a few of the jars that we will give as a gift this afternoon to her favorite teacher Mrs. Laster and her sweet husband. You can even make your own recipe label tags as we have done before.
Use this Hot Pepper Sauce over fresh cooked peas and beans or any Tex Mex or Mexican recipes as a flavoring. Just be careful with the amount you spoon over your dishes as a little bit goes a long, long way!
Click here for The Ranch Kitchen's Hot Pepper Sauce.
Alise - The Ranch Kitchen
