Though I only planted one Red Rocket pepper and one Thai Hot pepper plant last year, if you grow peppers you know how they produce. So I’ve dried them all, and now here I am with bags and bags of supremely fiery peppers and a family with wussy gringo palates.
What to do, what to do…
Make pepper-infused oil, obviously!
That’s 750ml of olive oil and about 1/2 cup dried* and crushed peppers, though I did leave a few peppers whole for visual appeal. That’s going to sit in a cheesecloth-covered mason jar (needs to breathe to really get the infusion process going) for about two months, or until it’s nice and pepper-red. I’ll just rebottle it in the original olive oil jar (which is having its label soaked off as we speak) and be set for chile oil for, oh, WEEKS at least.
*Dried, yes. If you use fresh then the joy of botulism shall be yours.
on 
on Jan 29th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Great idea for using those peppers up — we ended up with baskets of Jalapenos last summer and I ended up just freezing most of them. Next time, I’ll use your idea for some of them.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 9:58 am
How do you dry your peppers? And how do you keep the cats from battting them around while they’re drying?
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 10:00 am
@Caitlin:
I spread them on paper plates and put them on the kitchen island, which gets a TON of light from the kitchen window. The kitties apparently are not as dumb as they look…they’ve never bothered any of the drying peppers.
You can dry them in an oven on low heat but that’s just silly, and wasteful. Any bright area will do, just not outside in the sticky heat. That way lies rot.
on Feb 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Hmmm. I don’t really have a practical space with that kind of light. Might have to experiment with the oven. Someone gave us a food dehydrator last year, but it didn’t work.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Yum. Your pepper-infused oil would be great on collards and other greens. I have a wussy palate, but I’m inspired now!