How to Make Homemade Hot Sauce
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Here is a way to make hot sauce from left over hot pepper pieces/parts (seeds, pith) that would have been thrown away.

![Seeds and stems](pics/sm/stems-and-seeds.jpg) ![Bottle hot sauce](pics/sm/bottle-hot-sauce.jpg)

I was stuffing jalapeno peppers with cream cheese to make poppers.  I cut off the ends and removed the pith
and seeds inside and had a pile of scraps left.  This is some of the hottest parts of the pepper, but they
are not as good to eat or cook because they are so hard and get stuck in your teeth.  But we can extract 
all that spicy hotness and make a sauce with it.

Ingredients
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* Something Hot (hot peppers or chopped up pepper scraps)
* Something Flavorful (e.g. roasted red pepper, garlic, onion)
* Vinegar
* Salt

Get peppers and boil in Vinegar
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Chop the peppers or scraps.  Chopping them up allows the heat to get into the vinegar.

Cover the peppers with about twice their volume in vinegar.  So if you have 1/2 inch of peppers in your
pot, add about an inch of vinegar.  This isn't exact, but isn't something that can be messed up either.

![Add discarded hot pepper pieces to pot](pics/sm/discarded-pepper-stems-seeds-and-pith.jpg)

Stuff you were just going to throw out!

Bring to a boil and simmer 5-10 minutes.

Strain
------

![Strain vinegar into measuring cup](pics/sm/strain-hot-peppers.jpg)
![Hot pepper infused vinegar](pics/sm/hot-pepper-infused-vinegar.jpg)

Pour through a strainer and save the vinegar infused with hot peppers.


Add flavor
----------

You've got heat, and perhaps a tiny bit of native flavor from the hot pepper, but this is where you pick
a flavor to make it really really good.  I like using a roasted red pepper.  It is rich and smoky and slightly sweet;
everything the jalapeno isn't, so they should pair well.  This was a home roasted pepper that I pickled in a brine
and seasoning solution.  Store bought is also good, but avoid ones packed in oil.

![Slice the roasted red pepper](pics/sm/slice-a-roasted-red-pepper.jpg)
![Combine infused vinegar and red pepper](pics/sm/add-roasted-red-pepper-to-hot-vinegar.jpg)

Slice it up into chunks and combine with the infused vinegar in the pot.

Blend and add salt
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![Use immersion blender](pics/sm/use-immersion-blender.jpg)
![Simmer blended sauce](pics/sm/simmer-blended-hot-sauce.jpg)

Use an immersion blender (regular blender works ok, too) and blend.  Bring to boil and simmer.

Add salt to taste (less than teaspoon for this recipe).

At this stage you can add in other spices if you want as well and keep tweaking the flavor.  But keeping it simple
tends to work best.  Next time you see a jar of hot sauce, read the ingredient label.  There are usually only about
4-5 ingredients total (just like this recipe!).

Bottle
------

Bottle the hot sauce.

![Bottle hot sauce](pics/sm/bottle-hot-sauce.jpg)