My vegetable harvest this year sucked big time. The summer has been particularly mild and very wet. My garden is in a relatively shady side of the house, and although we picked the sunniest patch for our potted tomatoes, they all perished. Many of them developed disease. Brown rot, weird speckling, and overall, those tomatoes that did survive – mostly from two plum tomato varieties – took ages to ripen.
On the other hand, my chilies went berserk, and my eight chili bushes, grown from tiny seedlings, had a good time. I found this odd, as they are generally much more heat loving than tomatoes. Whatever. Weirdos. Six out of eight plants were habaneros. And so I had quite some fruits, to… Well… To do what really? Who in their sane minds considers eating these things. Sure, I cook with them, but there was a bit of a discrepancy between what I need on a yearly basis, and what I harvested. I harvested what was ripe, and had about 40 fruits. The bushes were all still filled with unripe fruits, but the low temperatures of last week have killed the plants. They now found their final resting place on my compost pile.
The ripe habaneros I kept on the kitchen counter for quite some time. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Slowly, one by one, they were turning bad over the past weeks, and yesterday, Heike told me I should do stuff with them. What could I do but obey? I froze the fresh-looking ones, cut up the more wrinkly ones, and threw out the bad ones this afternoon.
I had about six habaneros that were wrinkly, and not super fresh. Still totally acceptable for a sauce. To be fair, what else would you use these fucking hell berries for anyway? I sauteed the chili chunks with some garlic in a bit of olive oil, until the bits were soft and tender. It was evident that these fuckers were strong. Capsaicin concentrations in the air were high. No kidding, the air tasted spicy. As there was no way on earth I could eat this shit, I had to dilute. I grabbed the most sensible options – tinned tomatoes (but good ones, not the cheap shit), and cloudy apple juice. About one Liter of this concoction has been brewing on the stove for a while, while I was cooking dinner. Just before we got to the dinner table, I decided to have a small taste. It was full of flavor, but I certainly didn’t taste my dinner, as my taste buds were calling it a day after a few drops of whatever it is that I designed. Who’d have thought that dragon vomit would have such taste?
I guess I now have a five year supply of volcano juice, as this can only be consumed in droplets. Now all I need is a set of small containers and a safe space to store it, far away from children’s hands…
Robin Heinen 