Pepper Addict Gone Wild!

September 20, 2010Beth Ribblett

Kerry in the midst of her pepper plants.

She's always been a bit of a pepper fiend, but after smuggling in a pepperoncino from Sicily, Kerry's addiction to peppers has reached new heights. During a cooking lesson at the Mandranova Olive Oil Estate in southern Sicily, Kerry got her hands on a fresh pepperoncino, an essential ingredient in many Sicilian/Italian recipes. Like my fig cutting, the pepper made it home to New Orleans where she dried it and used the seeds to grow pepper plants which she put in our garden in the front of the house, planted in pots in the back and gave away a few plants to some lucky friends. And now that the weather has cooled just a bit, the garden has gone crazy with pepperoncino, cayenne, habanero, jalepeno, Hungarian and some varieties of peppers that we can't even identify!


Sicilian pepperoncino grown from smuggled seeds

We put them in/on everything from soups, stir frys, sandwiches, sautees and on the grill, adding heat and incredible flavor to lots of our favorite dishes. One of our staple weekly side dishes is brown jasmine rice with sauteed peppers and garlic. Deliciously spicy, you have to love the heat of habanero's to appreciate it, but if you can handle that, you'll love it! The coconut oil is one of the key ingredients, as it adds a nice tropical flavor, complimenting the spicy habanero and jasmine aromatics of the rice.

Spicy Fried Brown Rice

2-3 cups cooked brown jasmine rice (available at whole foods)
2 T. Coconut Oil (available at whole foods)

2 Habanero Pepper, seeds and ribs carefully removed (wear gloves if you can)
3 cloves garlic

Stir fry garlic and peppers in coconut oil over medium heat until vegetables begin to caramelize. Add cooked brown rice and stir until grains are coated with the oil. Continue to fry for 5 to 10 minutes while rice absorbs the flavors. Enjoy!

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