Yesterday, I celebrated my birthday in gloriously unremarkable fashion.  I slept in, we took Sharky for a walk, I watched a Twilight Zone and wrote up a related post, and then I made a hot sauce using cayenne peppers from my sister’s garden…

It’s a variation on an old Jamie Oliver recipe, but I didn’t have my usual ingredients, so I mixed and matched.  In the past, I’ve made this with habaneros, but this time out I went with the far milder cayennes…which Akemi appreciated.

50 cayenne peppers, three shallots (instead of the usual two sweet onions) and some diced garlic.  A generous sprinkle of salt and a quick blitz.

Olive oil in the pan and then simmer on medium for about ten minutes.  Once it gets going and starts to reduce, I add a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar and a spoonful of Korean chili powder.

No red tomatoes and apples, so I went with cherry tomatoes from my sister’s garden and these two pears I rescued from the complimentary fruit basket in the hotel gym.  These get blitzed and mixed in with the rest…

I add 150 milliliters of apple cider vinegar and…well, the recipe calls for a cup of apple juice but I didn’t have it, so I went with a couple of tablespoons of farmer’s market apple jam…

Then simmer on low for another 20 minutes.

Once it’s had time to cool a little, it all goes back into the blender for another extreme blitz.

Because I used jam instead of apple juice, the consistency was thicker than usual – which I don’t mind as I much prefer a hot sauce with substance over the runny ones.  I had the option of running it all through a sieve but, again, I like the consistency – and the chili seeds.

And voila.  Pretty delicious, especially with the whole roast chicken Akemi made for lunch.  I couldn’t stop eating it. And then paid the price late last night.  But we al have to make sacrifices I guess.

For the man who has everything: a laptop stand, vitamin D, and two bottles of more hot sauce!

This morning, my sister texted to tell me my mother actually walked the length of the hospital hall today.  A HUGE feat given that, for weeks, she’s barely been able to make the six foot distance between her bed and the bathroom.  The hospital was so impressed that they wanted to immediately discharge her, but my sister suggested we wait (hopefully complete that epidural) and see how it goes.

Received an email yesterday informing me that a project I had thought long-dead has found new life (or, more appropriately, life support) and I have to pitch it in the coming weeks.  I have no recollection of the initial pitch and now it’s a mad scramble to dig it up out of my drafts folder.