Bachelor Chow

Picante sauce.

Image by me, using the HiDream I1 Fast engine

I’m still in a brain fog from attending FenCon XXI this weekend, and while I’ve got at least two essays to write — an After Action Report, and one on Non Permissive Environments — right now I just want to hide under the bed, and not think or deal with people for two or three days.

Foodie stuff is easy, and doesn’t require a lot of effort from the old think pudding, so …

My use of the term “bachelor chow” just indicates that the recipe to follow has some pre-made/“open a can of” elements.

Everyone should have a picante sauce recipe, and this one is my riff on the standard Pace version you find in stores everywhere, but since it involves some chili peppers, we’ll start with a small batch so you can test it, and adjust.

Take:

1 can (14-ish oz) of diced tomatoes
1 can (14-ish oz) of tomato sauce
1/4 cup of white vinegar
Water

1 large yellow onion
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3 jalapeno chilies

In a sauce pan, dump your diced maters, your tomato sauce, and your vinegar, then fill up one of the cans with water, and bung it in there, too.

While that is coming up to a boil, dice the onion roughly about the same size as the tomatoes and huck it into the pot; then de-seed and de-vein the jalapenos,¹ dice them up, and into the pot with them. Follow up with the spices.

When the pot hits a boil, give it a stir, chop the heat down to a bare simmer, and let it burble for about twenty-thirty minutes,² giving it another stir every now and then.

Take it off the heat, and let cool. You’ll notice it will thicken up a bit as it cools. Once it’s cool, into a jar(s), and off to the fridge!

Voila! Picante sauce.

I’d use it up in a week or so, if I were you.

Once you get your own process down, experiment with using different chilies, and different vinegars,³ until you get the version(s) you like best.⁴

Right. I’m back to avoiding people.

Ian

1. Wear nitrile gloves for this part. Just trust me.

2. Some people like the longer version.

3. A quarter cup of the juice that Mezzetta Pepperoncinis come in is a surprisingly nice variation.

4. Some folks recommend putting cilantro in, but the stuff takes like soap to me — and to about 14% of the population. I find it’s best to leave it out of the recipe, and serve a side bowl of it for the folks that partake.