Somewhere along the way, Tuffy P and I have developed a taste for very hot chiles. I suppose we simply built up a tolerence to the point that those commercially available red flakes just don’t do it for us, and neither do many of the hot sauces available. We’ve taken to drying scotch bonnets ourselves. The last batch came from our friend Arno’s garden but we managed to go through all of that. I’ve been watching the grocery stores for some really choice scotch bonnets and finally found them at Starsky’s yesterday. They were pricey but we missed having some seriously hot chiles around the house so I bought a bag of them.

The scotch bonnets have been in my dehydrator downstairs since yesterday early afternoon. I have the dehydrator primarily for drying mushrooms after a successful day in the forest, but it works great for scotch bonnets too. I just cut them in half, spread them out and let the dehydrator work its magic. This morning, about half of them were dry while the rest needed a few more hours. They’ll be ready sometime this afternoon.

The house, and particularly the basement is filled with the most amazing and intense chile funes. Beautiful.

Once I have the whole batch dried, I’ll grind them in a coffee grinder and we’ll have a good fresh supply of fiery hot goodness in the pantry.