Eat Your Veggies - Spice It Up!

I've been telling you about this amazing smoked pepper spice that my sissy, YoYoYoMoo and her Hubby, Mr. Moo make.

Guess what?

They made a batch this past week!

YoYoYoMoo sent photos and instructions!

Warning:

After reading this, you might want to plant a garden.

First we start with a mix of peppers from the garden.

I've planted a large variety of peppers to add to the depth of flavor in the mix.

The list includes:
Hot cayenne,  tobasco, Hot banana,  serano, poblano, anaheim, Super chili hot pepper, Hungarian wax, Mariachi, and  New Mexico chili pepper.

We place charcoal in the grill, light it and wait.

Once the coals have died down a bit, we place the grate over indirect heat.

We add pecan wood to the coals.

The goal is to add a smokey flavor to the peppers.

Place the peppers on the grate.

 Sometimes a few of the peppers will get blackened.

If that happens, we add them to the mix without removing the blackened skin.

Once the fire has died completely and the peppers are cool enough to handle, put them in the dehydrator for a couple of days until they are nice and crunchy.

We use a hand chopper to cut them down to size.

  We remove only the stems.

Everything else goes in the mix.

Hint: we tried a food processor and it didn't go well.

It pulverized them and had us sneezing pepper dust for the rest of the evening.

Sometimes doing things the hard way is best.

The mix is a deep red color and we us it on almost everything.

It's a black pepper substitution around our house.

 We store it in air tight containers.

 Sometimes even give it as gifts.

Recently,  Mr. Moo has added a cigar to the fire with the pecan wood.

He really loves the smokey flavor it adds.

Last fall Flower Boy, Drewman and I were at MOOdy Acres.

Mr. Moo made Flower Boy a hearty breakfast.

Flower Boy added a dash of this deliciousness to his breakfast.

He was hooked and has been asking for more than a sample ever since!

Over at MOOdy Acres they also have milk cows.

Mr. Moo milks daily, when the cows are fresh.

YoYoYoMoo and he have made butter and soft cheese for awhile now.

Last winter they tried their hands at producing hard cheese and added the smoked pepper spice.

 This, too, was a whole new level of deliciousness!

It was nothing like store bought pepper jack cheese.

 We folks at Rockin' B Ranch only got a sample though.

Apparently it takes quite a bit of curd to make hard cheese.

Did you know peppers could be so versatile?

I sure didn't!

I'm thinking our family Christmas should be pretty interesting.

We do a Dirty Santa type Christmas with YoYoYoMoo, Mr. Moo, The Big Kids, Drewman, Flower Boy and myself.

I am voting for homemade gifts this year!

Don't forget to #EatYourVeggies!

I'm off to lay out a garden plan for next year!

XOXO,

Rancher Girl