So I have these insanely hot peppers to test (see previous entry for full disclaimer about free peppers), and I don’t actually have any friends who will eat spicy foods with me. They sometimes have difficulties with black pepper.

I solved that by putting out a call on the internet to find local people who were excited by spicy food. And this morning I got to meet a lovely person with a delightfully high heat tolerance (who happened also to know two of my pre-existing friends).

We met for breakfast.

Fried eggs were just as tasty on the second go through.

The sweet potatoes were amazing! They didn’t get as caramelized as I expected, and the heat ended up being surprisingly mild. I think I might try candying the sweet potatoes, instead of glazing, just to see what happens.

The butters got approval (as did my homemade bread), and she preferred the honey butter on general principles of texture.

And then I started to improvise.

I picked some of the (bountiful and thriving) chard from my garden and prepared my Kenyan greens recipe, but with some hot pepper sliced in… and that was too hot. Unpleasantly so, without adding anything to the flavor. But once I picked the pieces of pepper out, it was pretty tasty - so perhaps just adding a chunk of pepper while cooking and then removing it.

And then I had the lovely stems left, so I made some fried rise with an onion, chard stems, diced carrot, leftover brown rice, finely sliced ghost chili, and a few drops of oyster sauce for moisture. It received approval from my guest, and I added some roast pork leftovers to it as I packed it up and froze it into lunch portions.

And I sent her home with the spicy truffles, so I haven’t heard back yet. The filling was right on the edge of okay for me, so I’m hoping they end up better once they have another layer of chocolate. I only had time to coat three of them, though, so my taste has to wait until tonight. I did learn an unrelated lesson about truffles, though - using a lower milk fat dairy option for the ganache center (the store was out of heavy cream) really makes a noticeable and unpleasant difference to the texture. I won’t be doing that again.

So I was lucky enough to trip over Marx Foods and Justin Marx a bit ago. And he’s been generous about letting me try the products he sells.

So I tossed my name in to try out their fresh ghost chilies. Yes, these were free and given to me by a company.

And they are hella intimidating. I’ve never had peppers tingle my nose before, and these could do it while whole and untouched.

Right, so I haven’t talked about hot peppers much here. I’ve frequently grown jalapenos, serranos, and habaneros. I think the flesh of a couple jalapenos are pretty decent substitute for green bell peppers in many dishes. Serranos are perfect for tingling up a summer sandwich of garden fresh tomatoes, white bread, mayonnaise, and salt. I rarely ever use the habaneros because they don’t add much in the way of flavor while they’re adding heat. My father’s the one who wants to plant them, and it’s mainly so he can talk about how he grows these really hot peppers. The most machismo I’ve had about peppers was eating a whole fresh bird’s eye chili on a dare in college - it hurt a lot, but I managed to surreptitiously drink a can of cola and that did a great job of cutting the burn and giving me style points.

In addition that background, it’s also worth noting that I usually can’t be bothered to wear gloves, even with habaneros. I just have one dirty hand (which touches the peppers) and one clean hand (which only touches the knife) - and then I try to remember which was which as the day wears on (okay, fine - my right hand is always the one with the knife). For these, however, I went to the sex supplies and pulled out the gloves.

Right, so the first recipe was just a private experiment to see just how impossible it was to eat one.

Ghost Chili bagel and egg breakfast

step one - fry half a slice of bacon. Once crispy, remove the bacon to a towel to dry.

Cut flesh of the chili from the seeds and membranes. Slice very thinly. Toss the slices of chili into the hot bacon fat and stir them around until they start to brown.

Put sliced bagel in the oven to toast.

Scrape the toasty pepper slices into a single thickness gathering, and crack an egg over the peppers. Continue to fry the peppery egg as you enjoy.

Gather your plate of toasted bagel (with cream cheese), bacon, and fried egg. Place the egg on top of one bagel and salt generously - but don’t make a sandwich in case you want unadulterated bagel to soothe your mouth later. Also slice some cheese for buffering, too.

Nom

End result of the breakfast was actually not bad! I might do it again. My nose ran a little and there was a little sweat on my scalp, but it ended up being an entirely delicious breakfast.

Oh - one more bit of background, I recently went to visit my ex, who has since become a rabbi, and while there we made candied etrog peel. I suggested we save the boiling liquid, so I came home with two jars of etrog syrup and my bags having been searched by TSA.

Right, so etrog syrup.

First things I made was citrus candied chilies.

Candied Chilies
First, I cut the flesh of two chilies away from the seeds and membranes - hold by the stem, and aim shallow. I managed to get one pepper into two pieces and the other into three.

Next I boiled the etrog syrup - already so supersaturated that crystals had formed, so I didn’t add more sugar. If you are starting without syrup, add equal quantities of water and sugar of sufficient quantity that the pieces float about and you aren’t worried the liquid will boil away.

Once it came to a boil, I carefully transferred each piece of pepper and let them boil for about three to five minutes.

I placed the pieces on some waved paper to dry, and I poured the (now insanely spicy) syrup into a clean jar.

Once the peppers were drier, I dredged them in sugar and put them in a jar.

So what do I do with candied peppers? Well, so far I’ve tried truffles

Candied Ghost Chili Truffles
ganache center
6oz República del Cacao° 75% Los Rios
4oz light cream (should have been heavy cream, but the store was out)
2 grams candied ghost chili, minced finely

coating
70% Santander

But that just used up one of the five pieces, and the truffles are just on the slightly insane side of spicy, but tasty.

And I still have the etrog/pepper syrup. But I have a plan. Well, at least a plan for a little of it.

Chili-glazed Rosemary Roast Sweet Potatoes
Cut sweet potatoes into 1 inch cubes, or larger chunks.

Roast them in oven, until just cooked through, with rosemary and ground allspice.

When cool enough to handle, toss the potatoes with the etrog/chili syrup and then put the potatoes back in the oven long enough to get some caramelization.

Finish with kosher salt for texture.

I tried roasting some of the peppers in the oven, but they are thin-skinned peppers and I chose some of the smaller ones, so I ended up with dried peppers, instead. From them, I made two seasoned butters.

2 Ghost Chili Seasoned Butters - sweet and savory
Sweet
4-5 Tablespoons of softened butter
pinch powdered ghost pepper (about a pinch’s worth, if from a jar)
3-4 Tablespoons of buckwheat honey
sprinkle of powdered mace

Savory
4-5 Tablespoons of softened butter
pinch powdered ghost pepper (about a pinch’s worth, if from a jar)
1/16th teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon paprika

And that still leaves me with quite a few peppers to work with!

My friends are getting together a communal order for spices to save on shipping, and for some the Thanksgiving season is the time to go through their cabinets and weed out the old spices.

I mostly want to make grabby hands at them and take on any old ill advised purchase because I don’t believe in waste, but I shall restrain myself and instead offer a few suggestions to all you all on how to use up weird spices.

Meat
Pick a spice - almost any spice. Cut up your meat into quick cooking pieces (so you don’t have to think about whether your meat is tough or whether your spices will burn) add about a teaspoon of spices/herbs for every 3 ounces (varying, of course, by pungency and personal palate). Marinate, quickly cook, nom on a salad, sandwich, in a quesadilla, over rice, in rice, with pasta, chilled later in a grain salad - whatevs

Or rub it all over the outside of your whole roast. If you’re worried your animal will be dry, mix the spices into butter first, and then rub it all over the outside.

Potatoes
Potatoes love your crazy spices. potato salad - pick a lipid (mayonnaise, olive oil, coconut oil, some toasted sesame oil, chili oil), pick a seasoning (well… anything, really), and pick your potato.

Shallow fried potatoes also love your crazy spices! If you’re looking for a way to use up chewy rosemary, then this is perfect. My secret trick is to add the rosemary at the very beginning. Let it fry crisp (flavoring the oil deliciously) and then when you eat it, it crumbles into just a tiny bit of crispy texture.

Mashed potatoes? Oh, yeah - go crazy

Other root vegetables
You can just cut up any root vegetables into 1″ cubes (if including beets, be aware that they will color everything the touch), toss them into a dish or a foil/parchment packet, add a tiny amount of butter or oil for flavor, and add any seasoning - put at the bottom of your oven while baking other things (will take a little more than an hour at 350F and maybe 40 minutes at 500f - feel free to occasionally poke at the packet and see if it’s squishy yet - these are very vague cooking times)

Bread
Foccacia was made for this, but really any bread can take an addition of herbs and/or spices. Add in the kneading, or as a swirly layer in shaping, or as a coating on the crust.

Vegetables
Any time you go to sautee some vegetables, feel free to peek into your spice rack and toss something in there. Anything - it doesn’t have to be well planned. But, because vegetables are not as sturdily starchy as my other suggestions, use a more judicious hand with the quantities and taste as you go. (Note - great use of whole mustard seeds)

Spreads
You can be incredibly gourmet and exciting this way! Woot! Mix random ass seasonings into butter, cream cheese, mayonnaise/aioli - all of a sudden you have something delightfully paired/contrasted with the flavors in your meal. Well done, you! And anything left over will be good on a bagel. Everything is good on a bagel.

Nuts
Toast nuts! To get your spices to adhere, use a little bit of melted butter and/or sugar while tossing the spices/herbs with the nuts. You can’t go too weird here.

Or, you can give any you can’t use up to me.

So there I was, walking home after having stayed at work until the place closed at midnight, when I encountered Coup de Taco, one of the city’s reknowned traveling food trucks.

Well, I hadn’t eaten in nine hours or so, and it was a bit late to start cooking (plus the depression from having two close midterm elections not turn out the way I’d hoped), so tacos sounded like a grand plan.

I parted with $6 for two tacos, and a told the guy to pick whatever was exciting or they still had a lot left over from the day.

While I was waitinng for my order, I saw a regular come by to order, and I overheard them warning him that with his peanut allergy he shouldn’t order the thai taco. I was impressed by that.

My order did include the thai taco and a cuban one.

I ate the cuban taco first, and I liked it so much that I stopped halfway through lest the thai one not be as good. The cuban one was similar to dinners I’ve made in the past - soft rice, several kinds of beans (at least small black beans and garbanzos, but there might have been another kind what with it being dark at midnight and all), a little bit of tomatoey goodness to cook in - but crunchy with small pieces of chips. Very tasty.

But the thai taco was even better. Fragrant fluffy rice was beside chicken cooked, not in the easy bought thai curry paste I expected, but in fresh seasonings with a mild hint of sweet and chili. And fresh herbs! There was at least a full sprig of crisp cilantro (still very fresh for it being midnight) and I suspect that if I’d dissected my taco there’d have been another herb there as well (a mild basil?).

So what were they doing there at midnight? I asked. Apparently, the colder weather had led to slow lunch sales, so they are going to try late night sales for a bit near bars closing for the night.

Marx Foods gave me a sample of disposable palm plates to try and review. I passed them along to some friends.

This is a stub entry where they can leave comments.

I haven’t added any links or explanations because I’m writing this on a phone while on vacation in Chicago. Whee!

It has been a few months since I read about double-boiler scrambled eggs, and I’m still a bit flabbergasted by the whole discussion.

So it’s possible to get eggs wrong - they can be burnt or impossible to scrape out of a pan or unevenly cooked in a way you find icky. But once you get past that - you’re doing it right.

There is no single perfect platonic ideal of an omelette for all occasions. There’s the thick, sometimes browned, 2 egg omelette of the buffet line; there’s the thin, custardy French rolled omelette; there’s the even thinner folded short order grill omelette; and there’re even the scrambled eggs you were hoping to serve as an omelette, but which are still tasty just the way they are.

Seriously, I don’t care whether you pre-mix your scrambled eggs or just break the yolk in the pan. I don’t care whether you turn with a spatula, fork, or just swirl the pan delicately. The eggs are still going to be delicious.

But here’s the true secret to delicious eggs. It’s the one thing that makes someone’s fancy egg demonstration taste so much better than yours. The secret - the really important secret - is that you have to convince whoever is eating the eggs that the rest of the food is unimportant, and that they should be standing around - fork in hand - waiting to eat the freshly cooked egg the moment it leaves the pan. That, more than anything else, improves the eggy experience.

This is the slightly neurotic backstory to the cook fish story

So I woke up this morning and really didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did manage to barely get out of the house in time to acquire the 20L stock pot a nifty Philadelphia food person had offered on Twitter. I did not do public transportation, nor the brisk walk I had thought might be fun. I drove. But still - pot acquired. And even though I had grabbed a small book I’d made and a bar of fancy chocolate to offer in exchange, I did not remember to hand them over… a bit out of sorts today.

But then I was in the vague vicinity of the one place in all of Philadelphia to get reliable fresh seafood. So I stopped in and made a fool of myself and clearly admitted I knew nothing but would they please point me toward something fun. And I ended up with a pretty whole fish, which I asked them to fillet and give me the bones and head and all so I could make stock.

So I get home and have to look quite hard, but I do find a close-ish parking spot off of the snow emergency route (oh, hey, looks like we’ll probably get more snow).

So I get home and do the dishes, so I’ll have a clear workspace for the fish. And there are a lot of dishes (just because). And I open up the fish, and there are only two lovely fillets - no bones or bits. Grrr.

But I’ve got this weird thing going where I should have left five minutes ago, if I were going to go to work, but I have to get the fish sorted before I leave. No idea why I can’t just shove it in the fridge.

So I trim the awkward bits (not really awkward in the real world, but I was looking to make them smaller, anyway, so that was my excuse for picking on the thinner area) off the fillets and set them aside to dice and make ceviche. And I wrap the now 3.5 and 4 oz fillets back up tightly and back in the plastic bag. Next, I pull out my ice bin and line it with foil before I put in the bag with the fish to approximate the rig Alton Brown had which took up a whole shelf in a decoratively empty fridge.

And then I look at the clock, and I could just put on clothes and grab a cab and make it to wok five minutes late… so I start preparing the ceviche. It’s a weird disconnect that happens sometimes, but not so much since I quit being stressed from college. So I called out sick and had a great day of it.

1) As of the wee hours of the morning, I’m an aunt.

2) I did not get the house on which I made an offer - over the weekend, someone else also put in a bid for the house, only full asking price.

3) I have a new laptop. Oddly, it’s still in the box.

4) Made more truffles - for the help_haiti auction. They are getting mailed out today. Made a box to fit them all perfectly, too, and I might be even more proud of that because the little muffin wrappers were ornery and hard to keep squished together and tidy.

5) back on the wagon for Weight Watchers. Over about the 8 months off the wagon (wherein I discovered rudimentary baking), I only gained 11 pounds, so I’m not too badly off. I restarted also to enable my boss’ quest to fit into her pants.

6) have new kitchen toys: a salad spinner (birthday present and something I’ve been pining after for years and years) and a pressure canner

7) While planning for the house, evaluated apartment. With sufficient boxes, I think I could pack up to move in about 4 hours. Maybe less.

8) I’ve lost my apples tree in the back yard to termites and heavy snows. If I’m not moving, I am worried about the summer. I’ve long suspected that the shade from that tree was the main reason I could manage without air conditioning.

9) Okay, now I have to get dressed and mail packages, including one addressed to a brand new baby, probably still in the deeply unattractive stage… though after 12 hours of unproductive labor, there was a C-section, and I hear those babies are supposed to be prettier - at least their head shapes are less silly, but they might still be purple. No idea. No pictures yet.

10) This week, I have to reserve all the side trips and stuff for the Rome trip.

11) I need to call the property manager and ask them to check that my neighbor isn’t dead. (I haven’t seen him for a couple months and for a couple other reasons)

12) I did my taxes. Federal ones have already been e-filed. Now I have to remember to mail in my state taxes. There was a terrifying moment when I thought I owed almost as much to the state as I’d been getting back from the federal government. Then I saw I had entered the state withholdings line with a decimal point in the wrong place. ~whew~! All is well with the world. I requested direct deposit so I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I’d still be at that mailbox when the check came.

I was sitting here very impressed by a chef on twitter praising one of his prep cooks for cutting up cilantro (because, really, who does that? Giving random praise by name for doing simple tasks well is awesome.)

And then I popped out, and my student worker was running around keeping a whole room full of microfilm users educated and happy - I’d had no idea we were having a rush. So I sent off a note to my boss.