Last week we made a second big harvest from our chili plants and dried the chili peppers in the oven. Yesterday I bought a mortar and pestle and today I got to work grinding up a tiny batch of chili powder. Now, I know that chili powder in the US seems to be some kind of spice mix you use in chili. This is now that kind of chili powder. It's pure chili peppers ground up into a powder, chili powder! I used two medium hot red chili peppers and one tiny Bhut Jolokia (aka Ghost pepper), an extremely hot variety of chili pepper. This produced a powder that was really spicy at first taste, and when the stinging feeling of heat disappeared from the tongue, your lips and mouth might feel slightly numb from the bhut jolokia. In a good way! This powder will keep you warm through winter. I can't wait to try this in some food soon.
