This summer, we grew a ton of Thai dragon peppers. We add them to almost everything—salsa, hummus, pasta sauce, oatmeal. Not oatmeal. That was a joke. A lame joke.

Autumn has fallen upon us. With temperatures dropping, we must harvest and use all of our peppers. But, that doesn’t mean we should let winter destroy our diets. Winter may ravage our garden, but it cannot deprive our lives of spice. Its frigidness may creep into our bones, but our stomachs—they will be warm and happy and full.

Because we enjoy flavor and seek to not waste our pepper bounty, we recently concocted a recipe for homemade hot sauce. It’s marvelous. You should try it.

Homemade Hot Sauce

Ingredients

• 25 Thai dragon peppers
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 of an onion
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• 2 cups of water
• 1 cup of white vinegar

Directions

Remove stems from peppers. Peel onion and garlic. Chop peppers, onion and garlic coarsely. Sauté in a saucepan on high heat for three minutes. Add water. Reduce to medium heat and cook until mixture has reduced by one half. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Pour into food processor or blender. Slowly add vinegar while pureeing.

Place mixture in airtight glass jar in the refrigerator for at least four weeks. Afterwards, return mixture to blender. Puree until liquefied. And, done.