Simple Pepper Sauce Made from Dried Peppers

There's probably a better name for this stuff, but I just call it pepper sauce.

This is the simplest version I make, and it's easy enough that you can make it any time you want it, as long as you have dried peppers on hand.

And since dried peppers store well, there's no reason not to have some stashed away.

I usually use a mix of peppers. Usually that includes anchos and guajillos. But use whatever you like, and whatever is available locally. You can certainly use all the same pepper, but I think a mix is nicer.

Use this recipe as a guideline, but experiment and modify.

Simple Pepper Sauce

12 dried peppers (I used 3 each of ancho, guajillo, hot New Mexico, and mild New Mexico peppers)

1 teaspoon salt (and more, to taste)

2 tablespoons honey (and more, to taste)

In a medium saucepan, heat about a quart of water to boiling. Turn off the heat and add the peppers. Make sure the peppers are submerged in the water. Let the peppers soak until they soften and are cool enough to handle.

It's best to use gloves when you handle the peppers, Even if they aren't hot, or even if pepper heat doesn't bother you, they can stain your hands.

When they're softened and are cool enough, remove the stems and seeds. It's fine if you leave some seeds, but remove the majority of them.

Put the cleaned peppers in your blender and add enough water to blend them into a loose milkshake-like consistency.

Strain the mixture through a fine strainer and into a clean saucepot. Discard the seeds and bits of peel that remain in the strainer. Some people skip this step, but I think it makes a much better sauce if it's strained.

Add the salt and honey and simmer for a few minutes. Taste it and adjust the salt and sweetness, as needed.

Last time I made this, I mixed it with some cooked pork roast and made sandwiches.

It's also great as an enchilada sauce, on chicken, or to flavor whatever you're stuffing into a tamale. And pickled onions went really well with it on this sandwich.

David Lebovitz's Creamy Rice Pudding

Before I get into the recipe, I've got to apologize to David Lebovitz. No, really. I'm sorry.

This is how it all started.

I was paging through Ready for Dessert and thinking that I was really was ready to make something for dessert. But what? My criteria was pretty minimal. The ingredients had to be readily available, so no persimmons or passion fruit or anything else the grocery store was unlikely to stock.

It would be a plus if it didn't require a trip to the store. And it would be a double-plus if it would use up a lot of milk. Because I had a lot of milk on hand, and the next delivery would be here before this was gone. So using up milk was good.

I stopped briefly at the chocolate gelato. Oh yeah, that sounded good. But I've got strawberry ice cream in the freezer, so I don't really need a gelato in there too.

Irish Coffee Cupcakes sounded really good. But I didn't have the booze for them.

Then I found the ideal recipe. Rice Pudding. I love rice pudding, but I haven't had it in a long time. But the downfall? Sigh. Raisins. I absolutely abhor raisins. Now, I'm not a picky eater. Give me liver, beets, broccoli or any of the other myriad things that people often don't like, and I'm perfectly happy. There are only two things I refuse to eat. One of them is raisins. I don't think that's unreasonable for an adult to refuse to eat two things, right?

Now, here's the deal. I know there are raisins in condiments like Worcestershire sauce and mole, and I'm fine with that. Grind 'em up and make them disappear, and that's great. But whole raisins, and particularly cooked raisins? Sorry, can't do it. Nope.

Okay, maybe if it would offend a foreign dignitary at a state dinner, I might find a way to choke down an oatmeal raisin cookie. But there's no way I'm willingly putting raisins into food that I'm cooking and that I'm going to eat.

Now, if someone else in this house would eat the raisins for me, I'd pick them out. But no one's gonna do that, so there's no sense putting them in just to throw them away. So I decided that I'd make the recipe sans raisins. The first problem was that the raisins were cooked in a bit of rum, and the raisins and the rum went into the pudding. So if I left the raisins out, the rum flavor was out, too.

The second problem was that something Lebovitz said in the intro to the Irish Coffee Cupcakes was nagging at me:

One of the pitfalls of having a blog is that you leave yourself open to all sorts of questions. The most common are from folks who want to substitute ingredients. I always want to reach through my computer screen, grab hold of their shoulders, and say, "But I worked so hard to develop this recipe. Please make it just as it is."

So yeah, I was feeling hands on my shoulders, and hearing a voice chiding me about the raisins. But I forged ahead anyway, sure that leaving out the raisins was not as big a sin as substituting random ingredients with no regard what it would do to the structure of the finished product.

Creamy Rice Pudding
Adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz

5 cups milk (see, I was using up a lot of milk here!)
3/4 cups Arborio riece
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

In a large saucepan, combine milk, rice, sugar and salt. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla bean, and add the seeds and bean to the pot.

Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring as needed until most of the milk has been absorbed by the rice and the mixture resembles a loose risotto. This should take about 45 minutes.

You'll need to stir more often as time goes on, and almost constantly at the end, to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. No one wants burned rice pudding..

Remove the vanilla bean (you can rinse and dry it if you want to save it for other uses).

The recipe suggests serving warm or at room temperature.

Okay, here's where I'm going off track again.

I like my rice pudding cold. I tasted it hot out of the pot, and I tasted it while it was chilling but still warm. It was really good both ways. Perfect texture. Nice flavor, But tomorrow, I'll have some chilled.

And while Lebovitz recommended a couple sauces to serve it with, I went old school and sprinkled on a bit of cinnamon. If I was serving it to company, I'd make the sauces. They sounded really good.

Now that I've tasted it, I can see how the rum would have added a little bit of kick to the pudding. Maybe next time, I'll add a teaspoon or so of rum as its finishing cooking.

But although I'm sincere in my apology that I didn't make the recipe exactly as stated, I'm not sorry that I don't have to pick around raisins. Because this is a good rice pudding.

And that gelato is still on my radar. That might be next. With no substitutions. I promise. And then the Irish Coffee Cupcakes will probably make an appearance soon to.

Peanut Butter Bread with White Whole Wheat

I've made peanut butter bread a number of different ways, but I didn't think about adding whole wheat flour to the recipe until recently. I don't know what took me so long. White whole wheat it the perfect ingredient, adding its own subtle nuttiness to the taste, and more texture as well.

As a bonus, if you're trying to add more whole grains to your diet, this is a pretty unobtrusive way to get them in. Everyone will notice the peanut flavor and no one will notice the grains.

For a change, I decided to make this loaf in the food processor. You can certainly make it in a stand mixer or by hand.

I used creamy peanut butter, but you could substitute chunky, if you prefer. Or use the creamy and toss in some chopped nuts as well.

When I made this, the dough got pretty warm during the processing, so it rose very fast. I decided to punch it down and let it rise a second time before shaping and baking. If yours rises slower or if you don't have time for a second rise, skip that extra step and proceed to shaping right away.

Peanut Butter Bread with White Whole Wheat Flour

1 cup lukewarm water
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup (4 1/2 oz.) white whole wheat flour
1 cup (4 1/2 oz.) bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Mix the water, sugar, and yeast, and set aside until it's foamy, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, put the flours, salt, and peanut butter into the bowl of your food processor fitted with the dough blade (or whatever is recommended by the manufacturer).

Pulse the processor a few times to distribute the salt and incorporate the peanut butter into the flour.

Sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan, and/or spray it with baking spray for added insurance.

When the yeast mixture is foamy, stir it again. Then, with the food processor running, pour the yeast mixture into the food processor as fast as the dough will absorb it. Continue processing until the dough forms a ball and cleans the sides of the food processor bowl.

Check the dough for texture and temperature. It should be smooth and elastic. If the dough is getting warm, let it rest a bit before you continue processing, as needed, until the dough is elastic.

Transfer the dough to a clean bowl. There's no need to oil the bowl - there's enough oil in the peanut butter to keep it from sticking too much.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside until it has doubled, about 40 minutes, depending on how warm your dough was after processing.

Punch the dough down and reshape it into a ball and put it back into the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic and let it rise until doubled again, about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

When the dough has doubled, take it out of the bowl and form it into a log that will fit in the pan. (You can also make a free-form loaf, if you prefer.) Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set it aside to rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

When the dough has fully risen it should be just a bit above the top of the pan, and if you press it with a fingertip, the indent will remain instead of springing back. Slash the dough as desired, and bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees, until the loaf is brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Remove the loaf from the pan and allow to cool on a rack before slicing.

This bread appeared on Serious Eats and has been submitted to Yeastspotting