Carterpants

Sorry I haven’t posted lately, I’ve been completely and totally consumed by the Final Fantasy XIV beta! Yeah that’s right baby, I got a beta key!

So far the game is excellent. It kinda feels like FFXI but with a host of game play improvements. The graphics are stellar and smooth, and crowded areas do not lag one bit. The interface is a bit cumbersome with little customization allowed, but there are rumors of future patches to allow users more freedom in tweaking the UI. Quest mechanics are confusing at first but they become second nature quickly. Battle interaction is very sluggish right now but again, this is a beta release.

I love the leveling system. You can redefine your character’s class simply by equipping a different Main item. Want to be a miner, just grab a pickaxe. Want to be a spell caster, find yourself a staff and get casting.

I’ll get some screenshots up tomorrow morning, but for now I must get back to my mining quests

This year’s weather has not been conducive to good growing conditions for our garden. Our tomato yield was much less than last year, our beans and peas only sprouted once (but were incredibly good), and we gave up on a few different items. One item, though, has grown out of control. Peppers peppers peppers! We tried peppers last year and had limited luck but this year we don’t even know what we’re going to do with all of them.

About two handfuls have already been harvested and I couldn’t wait to turn them into something. I decided on a very basic yet very concentrated hot sauce base, something that can be added to those sissy BBQ sauces and score you some man points. This is super easy and practically fool-proof.

What you’ll need:
Apple Vinegar – 3 cups should do it, depending on the number of peppers
Brown Sugar – 1 Tbs
Kosher Salt – 1 tbsp
Ketchup – at least 1/3 cup to be safe..
Peppers!!

1. Grab a handful of peppers. You can use any pepper really, depending on the level of heat you want to obtain. We grew cayenne peppers this year so our sauce turned out borderline nuclear. How hot, is hot?
2. Cut the lids and stems off the peppers, toss the peppers into a sauce pan
3. Pour enough Apple Vinegar into the sauce pan to cover the peppers by 1/2 inch or so. You’ll be simmering this for awhile so you can be generous with the vinegar, you can always pour off excess
4. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes. Be sure to open a window or two… its vinegar for gawd’s sake.
5. After 30 minutes remove the lid and pour off any vinegar so the liquid level is slightly lower than the peppers
6. Pour the peppers and vinegar into a food processor (the Magic Bullet is great for this) but don’t turn it on yet!
7. Add the following to the food processor: Tablespoon of brown sugar; teaspoon of kosher salt; and 2-4 Tablespoons of ketchup to start
8. Blend this all together until you have a slightly watery paste, kinda like bar-b-q sauce but just slightly thinner. If necessary add ketchup to reach this consistency.
9. Refrigerate overnight before mixing into your victim, I mean, sauce of choice

OMG like click here for the coolest pictures you will see in the next 5 minutes!!!!!!