First Harvest of all things hot!

First harvest of the season.

Thai Dragons, Ghosts, Scorpions

More varieties coming soon!

Seeds from Ghosts & Reapers

My seeds this year come from Ghost and Carolina Reapers given to us by a friend.  They've sat quietly and dried nicely.  

Now to see what grows!

Fresh Ghost Pepper

Fresh Carolina Reaper Pepper

Yummalicious Jalapeno Creamcheese wrapped with Bacon

Enjoyed these Jalapeno's split in half, filled with cream cheese and then wrapped with bacon, Friday night.

We had them on the grill awhile back, but no pictures.  Plus, they were not pretty.  

These were made in the oven, and look gorgeous.

Paired with a lovely Bud Light Lime beer, is highly recommended.   

Dreaming of Summer

Thumbing through the garden pictures from last year, made me crave summer.  These jalapeno's are the most beautiful red.  

I very much can not wait!  Hurrrrry Summer Hurrrrry!

Chili Pepper Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Grilled cheese and chili sandwich.

YUM!

This would go so well with homemade chicken noodle soup on a cold blustery day.

What kind of bread would you use?

Spicy Grilled Cheese

Happy New Year!

So, 2014 will be my coming out year.  Yes, you read that right.  Coming out with a chili pepper product that we love and hopefully will appeal to the masses.  There are a few things we make and use regularly.  Pizza shake, and jelly.  This year I made habanero and jalapeno jelly.  We haven't made jelly in a couple years, so it was a feat to remember all the ins and outs of the process.  

Looking back at the pictures of the plants, and fresh chili's made me yearn for Spring.  

Can you smell the Spring?

Right now we are just keeping Thai Dragons alive.  None of my Bhut Jolokia plants made it.  I think they were started to late in the season and just couldn't reach maturity in time.  

Stay tuned for the newest starts, in early spring.  

I have an industrial grow light.  Living in this smaller space, prohibits me from using it.  Maybe I'll find a place in the basement.  Until then, its South facing windows for growing babies.  

Chili Pepper History

Chili peppers have been a part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites located in southwestern Ecuador that chili peppers were domesticated more than 6000 years ago, and were one of the first self-pollinating crops cultivated in Central and South America.

Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them (in the Caribbean), and called them "peppers" because they, like black and white pepper of the Piper genus known in Europe, have a spicy hot taste unlike other foodstuffs. Upon their introduction into Europe, chilis were grown as botanical curiosities in the gardens of Spanish and Portuguese monasteries. But the monks experimented with the chili culinary potential and discovered that their pungency offered a substitute for black peppercorns, which at the time were so costly that they were used as legal currency in some countries.

Chilies were cultivated around the globe after Columbus. Diego Álvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the first chili peppers to Spain and first wrote about their medicinal effects in 1494.

The spread of chili peppers to Asia was most likely a natural consequence of its introduction to Portuguese traders (Lisbon was a common port of call for Spanish ships sailing to and from the Americas) who, aware of its trade value, would have likely promoted its commerce in the Asian spice trade routes then dominated by Portuguese and Arab traders.

There is a verifiable correlation between the chili pepper geographical dissemination and consumption in Asia and the presence of Portuguese traders, India and southeast Asia being obvious examples.

The chili pepper features heavily in the cuisine of the Goan region of India, which was the site of a Portuguese colony (e.g., vindaloo, an Indian interpretation of a Portuguese dish). Chili peppers journeyed from India, through Central Asia and Turkey, to Hungary, where it became the national spice in the form of paprika.

An alternate, although not so plausible account (no obvious correlation between its dissemination in Asia and Spanish presence or trade routes), defended mostly by Spanish historians was that from Mexico, at the time a Spanish colony, chili peppers spread into their other colony the Philippines and from there to India, China, Indonesia. To Japan, it was brought by the Portuguese missionaries in 1542, and then later, it was brought to Korea.

In 1995 archaeobotanist Hakon Hjelmqvist published an article in Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift claiming there was evidence for the presence of chili peppers in Europe in pre-Columbian times. According to Hjelmqvist, archaeologists at a dig in St Botulf in Lund found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer from the 13th century. Hjelmqvist thought it came from Asia. Hjelmqvist also said that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus (370–286 BCE) in his Historia Plantarum, and in other sources. Around the first century CE, the Roman poet Martialis (Martial) mentioned "Piperve crudum" (raw pepper) in Liber XI, XVIII, allegedly describing them as long and containing seeds (a description which seems to fit chili peppers - but could also fit the long pepper, which was well known to ancient Romans).