[CH] Red Savina Makin's!

Ricky Pike (ricky@metronet.com)
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 19:21:35 -0500 

It's been a week since I received Art's shipment of fresh Red Savinas here 
in Ft Worth, Texas.  Yea, I actually found another person to share in the 
cost.  The shipment alone cost a little over $40!

These things are HOT.  A friend and I occasionally eat whole habaneros, but 
neither of us are willing to tangle with these things (whole)!  It was all 
we could do for both of us to eat half of one...together!  The salsas I 
have made with these things are great.  I take the stuff to work, and it 
gets eaten up.  A couple of these crinkled up hot peppers in a big bowl of 
salsa is all it takes.  And my goodness what it'll do for guacamole!  My 
friends at work are going crazy for these things!  Everyone wants 
one....hopefully not for practical joke purposes.  I have volunteers from 
all over wanting to grow these things now (and I'm hoping my six packs of 
seeds I ordered from Sheperd's will be enough to go around).  I have a 
friend of a friend (Mexico native) that literally eats Dave's Insanity by 
the bottle.  His wife complains that it costs her so much to keep it around 
the house.  I sent a few of these things his way, and can't wait to hear 
the results.

A few went into the dehydrator, and seem to be doing fine.  I got all the 
water out, and they are as light and dry as can be.  Great for crushing up 
and spreading on food!

After preserving many of these in jars of vodka for the last week, I broke 
one jar out of the fridge today, and made the meanest bloody mary I've ever 
made.  The next one will definitely need to be diluted with untainted vodka.

Now that I'm done bragging about my purchase, I must ask about one of my 
attempts at preserving.  While those that were jarred with vodka seem to be 
doing great, I also attempted preserving some in jars of honey.  The method 
was simple.  Boil the jars, cut the Red Savinas in half, put them in the 
jar, top off with honey.

The honey has turned somewhat watery, and the peppers have shriveled.  I am 
unsure about these things at this point.  Not only that, I'm almost as 
concerned about my health as much as my precious Red Savinas.  Did I 
preserve these things in honey properly?  The jars had some pressure build 
up them that I'm worried about.  I'm hoping that in the worst case, I'll be 
told that they may be bad, but I can save them by putting them on the 
dehydrator, and making dehydrated, honey-glazed Red Savinas.

I'll probably end up freezing many of these things, and dehydrating the 
rest.  I hate to do that, because these fresh peppers in salsa are hard to 
beat!

Ricky