Peppers!

Maybe it's the cold weather, but we've been cooking with more chilies lately.  For brunch yesterday I cooked up some leftover beans and rice and topped it with a peppery tofu scramble and some jalapeño sauce, similar to the one they serve at the Seward Cafe in Minneapolis.  The tofu scramble had roasted red peppers, fresh green peppers and onions- So Christmas-y!

The jalapeño sauce was just minced jalapeño, salt, lime juice, and vinegar.  It was super tangy and hot and Mike and I love this stuff over tofu scramble.

Today Mike sounded so sad when he realized that all our our garlic chile sauce from this summer was gone that I made some more from our dried chile ristra. 

I just winged it, so I think you can, too.  

Hot Sauce

About 30 small dried red chiles (cayenne or Thai)

Nearly boiling water

1 clove garlic

salt

vinegar

Soak the dried chiles (stems removed) in just enough nearly boiling water to cover them for about 20 minutes.  Reserve the soaking water.  Place the soaked chiles in a blender with 1 clove garlic, about a tsp. of salt and a splash of vinegar. Pour in about 1 cup of the chile soaking liquid.  Blend until almost smooth- I like to have a little texture from the seeds left in the sauce.  Then taste (carefully!!!) and adjust the salt and vinegar to your liking.  If you like a thinner sauce, add more of the soaking liquid.  I ended up adding all of mine and filled 2 8oz. bottles and a 2 oz canning jar with sauce.  Refrigerate.

Note: This is not a recipe for canning!