Since we did our Christmas on Saturday due to kids could only come over
on that day I processed the hot chiles today for making hot sauce.
Ulterior motive was I got a Cuisinart 7-cup food processor for Christmas
and it made the job a lot easier and faster. DW and I clipped the tops
of the chiles with our matching kitchen sheers and then I processed them
with the chopper blade. All the chiles went into the sterilized 3-gallon
crock and then I put about three-fourths of a cup of pickling salt on
top and sealed the crock with two layers of plastic wrap.

The crock is sitting on the floor in the pantry, against an outside
wall. Floor temp is less than 60F so the crock shouldn't pick up too
much heat from the house. Hopefully, if I check the crock every day I
will be able to head off any incursions of mold that may occur.

Started with 5 gallons of chiles and only filled the 3-gallon crock
three-fourths of the way, roughly 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 chiles to my view.

For those interested the chiles used were exclusively Aji Limon de Peru
type, a chrome yellow, somewhat flattened chile that gets to about 3 to
4 inches long. I've been growing them for several years now and they're
very prolific. The plants were badly frost bitten this winter here in
Southwest Louisiana and I don't expect them to survive. They were
started as seeds in January 2005 and survived the 2005 winter readily. I
can recommend the variety to anyone interested.

Merry Christmas to all.

George