Spud's Choice Hot Noggin Sauce

     First, a couple clarifications. We did NOT give any hot sauce to our The Spud. Also, for those who like to needlessly panic, that's a sweet red banana pepper on her noggin'. We know better than to handle our little tater with hot peppery hands. To review: No Spuds were harmed in the making of this sauce. This particular sauce came about as an attempt to use up surplus peppers. I chose only red colored peppers since that was what I had the most of. I ended up with what can best be described as a sriracha variant. The sauce starts sweet and a bit garlicky, then you get a serious punch of heat that quickly levels off before slowly fading. Much like sriracha, I see this being a multipurpose sauce, topping everything from eggs to meats. As always, notes and changes are in blue.

Spud's Choice
Hot Noggin Sauce

Ingredients

(yields just shy of 3 half pint jars)

• 1 cup cayenne peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped
• 1 cup red jalapeno or Serrano peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped
• 1 cup bird or Thai peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped
• 1 cup red banana peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped
• 12 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 teaspoons seasoning salt

Directions

1. Load peppers and garlic into a food processor. Blend until a thick paste (the peppers, not you)
2. Dump the peppers into a nonreactive pot. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to incorporate.
3. Place on medium-high heat and bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. If you plan to use the sauce right away, you're done. It will keep in the fridge for a couple weeks. If you plan to can the sauce, proceed to the next step.
5. Load sauce into 1/2 pint jars, leaving about 1/4" headspace. Seal with a 2 piece lid. Place in boiling water bath for 12 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool. As always, make sure to refer to the National Center for Home Food Preservation for useful tips on how not to accidentally poison your friends and family.

Good times!