Jalapeno Hot Sauce

We all like hot sauce in this family (some more than others), so I wanted to try to make some this year. I feel like it adds up when you buy it in the store, and the bottles are pretty small.  I got some peppers from my organic farming friend, and set out in search of a good recipe.

My short attention span sort of got in my way this time.  I found a recipe for fermented hot sauce, and "read" through it.  It's a lot of text though, and I'd rather see recipes in list form, so I skimmed it.  Since I skimmed it, I missed the part where they used wine as the liquid for the fermentation.  I used vinegar.  Oops.  I never really thought much of it.

I put the peppers in vinegar and let them sit on the counter for 2 weeks.  I never saw any mold growth, I guess because they were in vinegar (with salt added) and not in wine or a brine like other recipes use.

When I re-read the recipe today, I realized my mistake.  I wasn't worried though, I just strained the vinegar and put the peppers in the blender.

Then I dumped that into a pot, along with half the vinegar I strained out, plus a few cloves of garlic and some onion powder.  That simmered for about 45 minutes, and reduced by a bit.

Then I added it back to the blender and let it go until it was smooth.

Ta-da!  Hot sauce.  It made half a gallon plus almost a pint.

It's pretty good too, and should last us a while!