Some like it hot

Salsa be damned!

Even though salsa is America's favorite condiment I have always been a sucker for hot sauce. Even before I met my Southern wife who opened my eyes to the wonderful world of Tabasco, I was dousing everything in sight in that glorious spicy liquid. I would even smother things that in normal circumstances should never have hot sauce near them. I remember very clearly in my sophomore year at Carroll that I used to make instant StoveTop Stuffing in the microwave and then drown it in cheap "Louisiana HotSauce" (I'm sure if I tried that now I would probably gag).

So my love affair with hot sauce has been alive and kicking for quite a while, but I never even considered making my own. That is until one of my younger brothers gave me the idea. You see, Jeff started cooking a lot earlier than most kids I know. I remember him being very young making eggs and mixing them with ranch dressing and loving every bite of them. Anyway, Jeff and I were talking sometime last year and he mentioned that he was going to try to make his own hot sauce and I thought, "Duh, why didn't I think of that before?"

So, to make a long story only slightly less long than it already is, I've had three different hot sauce making adventures, and I think I finally made one that I would make again. Give it a shot if you are so inclined. 

**Important note** Making hot sauce is EASY and fun. Don't be intimidated and feel free to riff here and there. Make it your own...that's what creating in the kitchen is all about, isn't it?

Kevin's Poblano Hot Sauce

3 large poblano peppers 

1 medium white onion - diced

1 garlic clove- diced 

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 cup water

1/2 cup white vinegar

1tsp sugar

salt & pepper to taste

1. Broil the peppers in the oven until they turn quite dark. Skin, de-seed, and chop them once you take them out.
2. Saute peppers, onion, and garlic in a little oil until soft. Let cool.
3. And softened veggies to blender with water, vinegar, lemon juice, and sugar. Blend, baby, blend!
4. Add salt & pepper to taste.

The secret here is to strain the liquid a few times. I try to get a good blend going then force it through a strainer into a large measuring cup and then pour the strained liquid back into the blender for some more blending action. It's really up to you to get it to a consistency that you like. Mine is thicker than Tabasco which makes it great for dipping chips into or even drizzling over Triskets for a snack. I've had this on tacos, pizza, eggs, you name it!

Buon appetito (or maybe in this case I should say buen provecho)!

The simpler the better

I used to think that good cooking required fancy techniques and ingredients that I could hardly pronounce let alone cook with (what the hell is xanthum gum and what would I even do withit?). As I've become a better more seasoned cook, I've found that keeping it simple usually garners the results that I am looking for and produces better, tastier food.

Case in point: the great polenta debacle of aught nine. I had found a recipe that I thought was going to be amazing - a red wine and mushroom polenta - that was going to blow Kelly away and make me some culinary hero for months to come. As is turns out this experiment was a disaster before it began- a multi-step, complicated recipe using a main ingredient I have never used before. If you have never used polenta, it's one of those things that you really can't walk away from. It requires constant attention and monitoring; or maybe I shouldn't have dumped it all in the water at once (probably a little of both). To make a long and frustrating story shorter and with kid-friendly language (I assure I was using none of that in the kitchen

that day), what I was left with was a purple clump of inedible mash. It was horrifying. Of course, Kelly, the saint that she is, took a few polite bites before excusing herself to make some peanut butter toast. A culinary hero, I was not.

Fast forward to Thursday's dinner. Ingredient list:

• Chicken.
• Home-made spice rub.
• Fresh sweet corn at the peak of its season from a farm we could have driven to.
• A compound butter made from the spices in our cabinet.
• A hot grill.
• A beautiful summer night.
• An adorable wife

Simple, easy, and delicious. In a word, "perfect." It's not to say that I won't try polenta again (I am both stubborn and Italian) but I now know that sometimes keeping it simple is the much more satisfying route.