Cayenne Pepper Sauce

My garden is looking pretty sad right now. I'm sorry to say I have pretty much abandoned it for the time being, working outside in the heat just isn't high on my list of things to do while being super pregnant. I  had a great time with it and will definitely pick it up again next year though! I learned a lot in my first year of gardening, mainly which crops work for me and which don't. Things I had great success with were my cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes and cayenne peppers. This that were a flop include cilantro and many of the other things I tried to grow from seed. Next year I will probably buy more already established plants and less seeds to start out. I still have some sweet potatoes going so I will wait and see how those turn out.

Anyway, much like my cucumber crop I had a huge amount of cayenne peppers and didn't quite know what to do with them. One of the cool things about cayenne peppers is that they are really easy to dry. Basically all you have to do is set them aside in a dry place and wait. You can speed up the process by using a heat source like your oven or the sun but if you have time you can just leave them lying out and they will dry up nicely. Since I didn't know what to do with all of mine I just let them slowly dry until I came up with an idea, hot sauce! So easy to make and so delicious! Here is the recipe I used.

18 dried cayenne peppers
2 cups vinegar (I used apple cider because it's my favorite and I use it for everything)
3 large cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt

Dried cayenne peppers

Peppers, garlic and salt ready to be boiled

I boiled the peppers, garlic and salt in apple cider vinegar for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the peppers were tender

After boiling I blended the whole thing with my emersion blender and strained it through some cheese cloth in to a mason jar. It turned out super yummy!

I really like this pepper sauce with my cheese quesadillas (my favorite lunchtime food). It's a great way to use up those extra cayenne peppers!