Hot peppers

I grew these

So I'm going to try this recipe:

Homemade Louisiana Hot Sauce with Fresh Peppers

Ingredients

• 1 pound red chili peppers use cayenne, tabasco, red jalapeno or others
• 3 tablespoons salt
• ½-1 cup white wine vinegar to your preference

Instructions

1. Roughly chop the chili peppers and add them to a pot with the salt and vinegar.
2. Bring to a quick boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Cool, then add to a food processor. Process until smooth.
4. Strain the solids out through a strainer and discard (or keep them for dehydrating – they make great seasonings).
5. Pour into bottles and use as desired.

Recipe Notes

Makes about 2 cups of sauce or so.
For storage: Vinegar affects acidity levels. Homemade sauces should be kept at 4.0 ph or below to keep longer term. If your hot sauce is not acidic enough, add more vinegar or citrus to bring the ph down. Keep in the fridge for freshness and longer keeping. You can also bottle your sauces with proper procedures.
Heat Level: Medium, though you can up the heat factor with hotter peppers.

From: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/chili-pepper-recipes/hot-sauces/homemade-louisiana-hot-sauce/

Question: how do you know if the sauce has a pH of 4.0?

A small dilemma

For several years I've been a volunteer at a big, old, beautiful Catholic monastery-church in DC. This came about because of my interest in beekeeping. The Monastery has a robust beehive operation and I volunteered to be a helper. When I got a call back from the volunteer people at the Monastery I was asked if I was interested in any other kind of volunteer work and I said "sure, what do you have in mind?" They had in mind minor office work, which is right up my alley -- I like the busywork of office work. So I've been going to the Monastery once a week for years, and have enjoyed it immensely. Some good friendships have resulted, and I'm particularly close to the friar who runs the business office.

I'm not at all religious and if I had to check off a box I would have to check "agnostic, with an admiration for most, but not all, Buddhist thought."

The most recent scandal in the Catholic Church has made me question why I'm devoting my time and effort to this particular volunteer job. My work there has never been about religion or about god or about any particular belief. No one there has ever even asked if I'm religious and they do zero proselytizing. But suddenly I'm very self-conscious about just walking into the building. Does working there, or even visiting there, suggest that I'm OK with the scandal that seems to touch many corners of this religion?

What to do....

This book! Making me nuts. False pride is involved, I believe.

I skimmed this book because a neighbor recommended it to me. It's causing me to fret way, way, way more than it should, and for all the wrong reasons. I'm not going to tell the whole story right now--because I seem incapable of blogging a short story (see, for example, yesterday's overly long story about a micro dog bite). But friends and family will get a sense of why I'm wringing my hands over the book when I reveal that the neighbor who suggested it is my Tea Party/Trump Supporter/Conspiracy Theorist Neighbor, with whom I have a love-hate relationship.

Skimming the book led me to this article, which is also why my brain is so muddled right now.

A scene from my very uneventful life

The other night I was walking to a neighbor’s house at 11 pm to feed her cats when two dogs from another house across the street rushed over to me, in the dark, barking, and not in a friendly way. I barely know these dogs—the neighbor, Cari, is new to the neighborhood. I tried talking to the dogs but in a split second I felt the smaller dog bite my ankle. Not hard, and the skin didn’t even break. But what a shock! I yelped, I think. Cari was right behind the dogs trying to get them under control, which she did, and then profusely apologized. I laughed it off and went on my way. She didn't know the dog bit me.

I confess that it shook me up a little. I have no experience with dog bites. When I walked home 15 minutes later I was nervous and hoped the dogs—there are three of them—were back inside or at least on leashes. I told Doug about it and he was annoyed to say the least. In the 2 months she's lived here, Cari has often let her dogs off their leashes while outside her house. It's not unusual for people to do that around here since we live next to a large park.

The next day Doug ran into Cari in the park. He told her he wasn’t happy and gave her a little lecture on the dangers of unleashed dogs. He even told her that the previous owners of her house were threatened with a lawsuit after their two part-pit bulls raced off their property and into the park where they encountered someone walking a single dog. Something ugly happened but I'm not sure exactly what. We do know that there was a financial settlement. Cari assured Doug that she would be more careful in the future and he replied “you’d better be!” And then he apparently repeated it as he walked away: "you’d better be!”

Doug has a very high boiling point for anger, but once it's reached it's not usually a pretty scene. He felt sorry almost immediately and we agreed that he would apologize when he had a chance.

The next morning we found this quartet of goodies on the front porch, with a very nice note from Cari apologizing again. So both Doug and I wrote notes back to her, with thanks and more apologies. Tough way to get some chocolate but there's no bad way to get chocolate, right?

A little art from my friends

San Fran Margo, my good friend of many years, has become a great water-colorist. She recently sent this lovely card depicting a B&B Doug and I visit at Bethany Beach, Delaware.

PS: I swore in January 2017 that I wouldn't blog about that maniac in the WH. Believe me, it's hard! But every time I post without mentioning him I feel a little stronger.

Hi Kathy! I don't save the bee balm seeds but I'll start if you want them. Sorry about the deer and your purple hyacinth beans. They love mine too.

My unruly but zero maintenance front porch

It gets harder and harder, as the summer rolls on, to find our front steps. Most of these plants/flowers/weeds show up each spring and summer with no help from me. I'm going to start blogging again, but I don't know why. Hello out there!