speaking of HOT STUFF

(pottery by Gary Rith)
Oh yes, many good things in the kiln yesterday, mm hmmmmm...I am in love with this color scheme:  blue jeans inside, nice spring green on the outside.  The wife tells me "nice dynamic shapes on those mugs! Hot stuff!"

Speaking of which, have you ever been at the hair salon reading PEOPLE or one of those magazines?  And seen a recipe in there, an actor's favorite recipe?  I saw one a few months ago for a HOT PEPPER PESTO and have been itching to make it.  The wife tells me "it is not like other pestos, but then again, "pesto" is Italian for "paste", so anything goes I guess" (the lady has lived and worked in Italy). And I am like "right, no lemon juice, pine nuts or parmesan".

It is dead easy and super wonderfully tasty.  You can keep the large jar in the fridge, good for several pots of pasta or pizza.  I have been growing basil all summer, and we were at our favorite farm Saturday getting peaches to make jam and bought the "hot pepper mix".  A box of unidentified hot peppers.

I tell the wife later "when I think about it, this is terrifying!  What are these, how hot????" and we realize we have a poblano and banana pepper, which we pull out to cook with, 4-5 jalapenos and a HABANERO and an unidentified long thing... we used 4 jalapenos and the habanero:  HOT mix, but not too hot for this :)

Chili pesto
2 cups lightly packed basil leaves
1 cup serrano peppers (about 10) stemmed (we used 5 larger peppers, 4 hot and one VERY hot)
2 garlic cloves
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes (not in oil)
one cup extra virgin olive oil

Chop ingredients on a cutting board or use a food processor and chop well.  Then pour into a pint jar and stir in one cup olive oil.  WE FOUND that in our blender it was easier to just blend everything together with the oil in one step.  It is soooooo gooooood.....