Making hot sauce

Today we made hot sauce!  All the peppers, onions, and garlic in the recipe were grown at CJA.  What fun!

Malachi washes up to get ready.  Cleanliness is very important.

Brian and Malachi cut jalapenos, demonstrating safe knife techniques.  They wear rubber gloves because the oil from these spicy peppers can linger for quite a while and cause irritation to the skin, nose, and eyes.  Mr. Dwyer learned this the hard way when making a test batch.

We remove the seeds and save them for planting next year.  All the stems and membranes go in the compost.

Malachi peels an onion grown in our garden.

Brian peels a garlic clove grown in our garden.

Walter opens a can of tomato paste.

Brian adds the ingredients to the food processor.

Walter hits "go" and watches the ingredients mix together.

Once the ingredients are processed into a smooth paste, Walter adds the mixture to a skillet over medium heat.

As the sauce simmers, Malachi and Brian add salt and vinegar.

Mr. Dwyer and Brian taste the mixture.

There was quite an aroma!

We use a funnel to pour the finished hot sauce into bottles.

Walter spent some time coming up with great ideas for the label.  Which do you like the best?

Here's the finished product.  We still have to make labels and do some math to determine our price.

Brian shows off our delicious and home-grown creation.

We'll sell our very special hot sauce at upcoming farm stands.