Creative with Chillis

Being creative with chillis...

Or, making sweet chilli sauce, because living in France where curry is not really A Thing, and the Breton version of ready-meals are not really My Thing, and because that made me start cooking more than I had previously which was, to be honest, quite a lot but then I started cooking as much as possible from scratch because then I would know exactly what was in the food that I was eating, even before health issues kicked off and made me even more aware of  the benefits of good nutrition...

And because cooking is creative and being creative is good for the brain...

And fun...

And don't the fresh ingredients in the photo look gorgeous? Almost like an oil painting by JMS of whom more will feature in later posts... 

And I am reminded of Tracy, with whom I once worked, who was a skilled artist and once, for an 'A' Level Art course, produced a set of works featuring tomatoes and peppers using many different media and techniques and styles that was so good I was deeply impressive. And envious.  

So, Sweet Chilli Sauce:

Ingredients:
2 large red peppers, skinned if you can be bothered, I can't
3 red chillis, I used 4 and it was HOT
4 de-seeded little tomatoes
5 cloves of garlic
Nice piece of  peeled fresh ginger
See above

Place the fresh ingredients in a blender and blend.

Like this....

Then gather:

6 fl oz white wine vinegar
1/2 lb sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar












and pop it in a pan with the blended fresh ingredients...
bring to the boil and then simmer quite hard for 25 minutes until it's been reduced to a thick, glossy, gloopy sauce...

and then pour it into sterilised bottles and seal.

et voilà

The sauce that I made today is eye-wateringly hot and so will probably be used in a stir-fry with a lot of olive oil, or drizzled over salmon steaks while they're roasting in the oven.

That's the thing with cooking, it's never the same each time that you do it and you never know what to expect.

A bit like life, really.