Yesterday, I made homemade salsa from scratch. That's it above--not bad, eh? I had two small yellow peppers that I got from my CSA recently (what's a CSA, you're asking? Well, it stands for Community Shared Agriculture, and basically you pay some money at the beginning of the season to a local farmer, and then he gives you a share of his crop every week. It's pretty cool, actually, even though some weeks you get things like rhubarb, or much worse--BEETS. But mostly we get lots of yummy veggies and fruits each week. I especially like the raspberries. The joys of living in the middle of Illinois!) But anyways, the farmer guy knows I'm from New Mexico, so he gave me TWO spicy peppers instead of one, which is what everyone else got. I knew I couldn't disappoint him, so I made salsa. I chopped up the peppers last, and made sure to wash my hands immediately afterwards, and to not touch my eyes. We had chips and salsa as part of our dinner, and it was pretty dang spicey! And while we were eating, my fingers started hurting and burning like mad. I washed them again and again, and even tried soaking them in milk. But they just kept burning. This morning the redness is gone, but they actually still hurt a little. Yikes! Who knew a tiny little innocuous looking yellow pepper (they are NOT habeneros, by the way) could be so dangerous! It's funny that just last post I was talking about lab safety and so on--I would NEVER use acid in our lab without wearing gloves, but here I am with acid burns on my fingers. Next time I'll make sure to put on my Personal Protective Equipment first! But I must say, I think it was worth it. That is some GOOOOOD salsa!
4 comments:
Mmmmmm! I miss your New Mexican style cooking. The hubby's not a fan of HOT. (Unless it's me. *grin*) Your salsa sounds AMAZING and CSA sounds pretty cool, too. How did you find out about it?
Yeah, my husband doesn't like hot either. Funny because he's from Ecuador. His mom tried to tell me one time that hot sauce is against the word of wisdom. They all were telling me this and then the next day we went to the temple in Guayquil and what do you know? There was ahi (Ecuadorian hot sauce) on the tables in the cafeteria!! I guess that shoots your word of wisdom thing out the window, Mother-in-Law and husband.
Anyway, that community garden sounds amazing. And TWO peppers? yikes! My mom would ALWAYS use plastic bags on her hands to cut peppers. I never understood why, and then I made the mistake of touching my NOSE after touching one of those. I remember it was burning for what seemed like forever. I think it was like 4 hours. That's what my young mind remembers, anyway.
Oh, and again, that salsa looks amazing. Did you sing "Hot Stuff" as you were making/eating it? Please say you were.
That's funny that Marcelo doesn't like hot stuff--is that common in Ecuador, or is it just his family? Touching your *nose* sounds a lot more painful! Yikes!
Amers, I found out about the CSA through a woman at church who is waaay into sustainable agriculture and locally produced food and that sort of thing. Illinois has a lot of them (it being a farming sort of place!) but I know you can find them in lots of places. If you're interested, check http://www.localharvest.org/csa/.
I guess that CSA thing is a not-in-the-Chicago-suburbs thing, 'cause I didn't know about it.
The salsa looks absolutely delicious!
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