Hot Pepper promises

We sent out 22 little boxes of chilli peppers just before the holidays, and I left our plants looking very tidy. What a great way to gracefully deal with excess. It was very satisfying to do.

Below are the promises that were sent, and as each one was its own gem and insight, and most made me laugh outright, I've included them all for your light Friday entertainment.

At the bottom is my own Sweet Chilli Sauce Recipe.

Have a great weekend, won't you? Bex

Hot Pepper Promises

I promise to plant Rocoto in my brand new greenhouse and keep him warm all year round, so as to protect myself from wandering univited gringos. :)
Lynda

I would like try some of your hot ginger killer peppers. My husband and son have started having competitions about who can handle the hottest pepper so these would be ideal for another pepper competition between father and son.
Telisa

Rocoto was a marvellous pepper that kept my son alive and chipper.We had them in a pot and it kept away the possums from other fruit and things they shouldn't eat.They lived all year around and it was so lovely to be able to let visitors pick one to take home.From here they spread.We haven't been able to replace the seed so if you had just a few I would be able to start this off again after the hard winter last year ended our plants life.I promise to let them be free to visitors so they too can enjoy the heat twice each time they eat them.
Lesley

I would love some of your peppers and I promise to treat them with the respect and courtesy they deserve and to share them with my brother-in-law and my 14 year old son who both have palates made of iron. I will share any delicious recipes I discover with you especially if I find something fabulous.
Hannah

I'd love to try some of these killers! I promise I won't handle them and then attempt to put my contacts in or take them out - I've already learned my lesson there, trust me! I will not give them to doggo and I will warn people when I have used them :)
Victoria

I would love to try this hot pepper- being Hungarian I promise to make a really, really hot goulash with them!
Cathy :)

hot peppers!
once upon a time, long before early mornings and night-time wakings, i ate chilli's. No longer! the small humans revolt, and refuse their plates. I have managed to sneak in a small amount of the hot stuff on top of my blue cheese crackers when the bliters are sleeping and before i am, but i have nearly run out of my chili jam! So i need more chillis, and then i will make more jam.
Thanks so much!
Ingrid

I promise to grow from seed a Gringo Killers bush. To love and cherish it whilst it gets established and then to share the peppers with others in our neighbourhood - with the appropriate cautions attached. They are hot and spicy but perennial and bountiful. The bush bears green, yellow and red peppers simultaneously adding beauty to the garden.
Pam

I promise I believe you they are hot, and I will pass them to my sister (who loves cooking & really hot/spicy stuff) so that she can create hot stuff for herself and my asbestos-tongued flatmate. I will not feed them to myself (I'm a bit of a wuss about really hot chillis) but I will save the seeds to see if I can get plants going in Wellington, so that I can inflict their production on the many chilliophiles that I know.
Amen.
Cas

I promise to save some weed and taste your crazy peppers and give others the option too - perhaps a Russian roulette pizza is in order? Just one piece has the killer gringo pepper - but which one? That's the question but by the sounds of your account it will be very obvious who gets the piece with the peppers!
I saved capsicum seed last year and had so many plants - they are still fruiting at school where I planted them.
Karen

I would love to get hold of some of your chilli seeds to pass on to friends in Christchurch with green fingers who are always so generous to us. Rob has a cast iron stomach and is one of those people who goes to Indian restaurants and says, I want it as hot as YOU would eat it, and then feels eyes peering through the curtain at him as he eats.
Laine

Bex, these Gringo Killers sound like exactly what I need! Our family is having one last winter in the lovely Bay of Plenty and moving on down to Oamaru in Spring...so if we can't have the sun then we will take some heat with us! I promise to tenderly look after the Rocoto's and handle them with care, even if it means dampening my daughter's enthusiasm in the kitchen by not letting her touch them or my son's who puts everything in his mouth. If I am lucky enough to get some seeds saved then I will make it my mission to get these beauties growing down in Oamaru and can then spread the love down South! Plus it will keep my husband very happy as his appetite for chilli and all things chilli is insatiable.

I would love to try your Rocoto Gringo Killer chilli! Carolyn

Yum Bex, my family and I are chilli addicts and add my home grown chilies to everything we eat from scramble eggs to cottage pie! My plants are now tired after producing 5 years of little hotties and I have only one left and its struggling I'd love some seeds and promise to make more chili sauce to continue fighting off the cold and flu bugs that surround us!
Thanks Hot Stuff X Tracy

I PROMISE I SHALL NURTURE AND A CARE FOR THESE HOT RED DEVILS, AND TO MAKE SURE THEIR BABIES ARE WELL CARED FOR AS WELL, THEY WILL BE WARM AND COSY IN MY GREENHOUSE WHILST WAITING TO MATURE INTO A PROPER GROWN UP. THESE ARE WOLVES IN SHEEPS CLOTHING BEWARE.
MISS LOUISE

My Gringo Killer Promise:
With hand on Heart and full body protective clothing, I promise to keep my friends and whanau, my cat, my dog, my chickens and my pet pukeko under constant surveillance whilst growing these peppers. I promise to continue to share the stories and end produce with my friends and whanau that dare to become the keepers of such a pepper.
Arohanui, Karen

We have a small garden ... and we are growing a few variety of chillies. We have been unable to source gringo killers as yet and would love to use them as heritage seeds to be able to make a super hot sweet chili jam.

We live for sweet chili jam and could send you a sample. Also we would like some to experiment with smoking gringo killers for a few different sauces and rubs. Oh the yum that could be had!!
Phil and Amanda.

i promise:

to wear my daughter's just-today-shucked cache of cardboard dressup masks, one-armed nana mouskouri glasses and rubber claws whenever preparing sweet chili sauce from yer matadores para los gringos ( but not her classic cardboard spring-solstice daffodil/pƒ´wakawaka wings & peripheral vision-occluding headpiece, as these may faciilitate the spread of chili to places where it can lie in wait and blind us all in the lowlightlevel months to come)...all things are thrown out by children but lovingly hoarded by parents for a purpose.

to use said sauce to entice my whānau further down the road of veganesque eating for carbon footprint purposes/current & future animal rights,( have massively reduced meat and dairy but we're stuck at eggs-menu-removal), with live ads in what my daughter calls "mexican" for friends when we finally have time to feed it to them.

would, further, love to get yer sweet chili sauce recipe or failing that some proportional saucemaking tips for avoiding days of colonic firehosing if that's at all a goer

thanks in advance if the seeds are still there when u get this, have killed all my chili seeds somehow.
alice

I promise to feed these to the local medieval re-enactors who all believe they are masters of the art of eating hot food. yes they are my friends and not my enemies. Trudy

I promise I will use these peppers in my hot chilli dish that my family and I, off the Scoville scale chilli loving fanatics, will enjoy and share our opinions of the gringo killers, and if we think they live up to their name. I promise to only feed hot food addicts with these peppers. I promise to propagate the seeds and pay the bountiful, hopefully, crop forward in the future.
Helen

We sent out 23 boxes of Hot peppers and the offer is finished now. Thanks for playing.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

• 8 hot peppers- I use gringo killers which are quite a large pepper. But also often mix in other small ones like the included, Pepper Black Olive (which goes red when ripe) and Jalapeno Black.
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 c. coconut sugar
• 1 1/4 c. water
• 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• (optional) 2 TBS cornstarch with enough water to make slurry
• optional: coriander, basil, ginger.

Use courgette or tomatoes if you want to extend the sauce and make if more accessible, ie, milder.

Food process or blend all ingredients except cornstarch slurry, until pureed. Transfer to sauce pan and boil, then simmer. About 3 minutes if using cornstarch. Longer if cooking down to syrupy consistency.

If using cornstarch, add cornstarch slurry and heat back to boil and simmer another 2 minutes.

Cool completely and store in glass in fridge.

NOTES:

• Gloves and eye protection are not over the top when dealing with feisty peppers. Ask anyone who has accidently rubbed her eye after cutting up said little adventures, just sayin'.
• Sauce does mellow over time.
• Seeds make a hotter product, and more texture.
• Of course you can use other sugar and vinegar, I just like the complexity of flavor of the coconut sugar, and ACV, well, that's just what we've got.
• If it's too darn hot, add more sugar and/or vinegar.
• If you taste then re-dip your spoon, your saliva breaks down the cornstarch, making it watery, eww!

This sauce recipe was modified (aren't they all?) from a recipe that used a lot less peppers (2 big hot peppers instead of 8) for the amount of sugar/water/vinegar, white sugar and white vinegar, more like the commercial batches of sweet chilli sauce where pepper pieces float in the thickened medium.