Home Made Hot Sauce

I have a cayenne plant in my back yard that is on fire - pun totally intended. When we planted the garden - my husband insisted we plant cayenne and jalapeno peppers. Now that they are ready to pick - I had no idea what to do with the cayennes - especially that many of them!
I decided to make hot sauce. It was really easy and the hot sauce turned out great - and I am not a hot sauce kinda girl. I found the recipe here.

Home Made Hot Sauce
1 or two handfuls of cayenne peppers
Apple cider vinegar
Tomato paste
Lemon juice (optional)
Kosher or Sea Salt

Remove stems and caps from peppers and chop into 1 inch lengths
Place into a saucepan and add enough vinegar to just cover the peppers
Simmer covered for 30 minutes, until the peppers are extremely tender
Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Place peppers and vinegar into a food processor and process until smooth (I LOVE my immersion blender!!)
Taste on a starchy carb (corn chip, bread, rice) or a cucumber slice
Add salt to taste
Add tomato paste for sweetness as well as to temper the heat to your desired taste
Add lemon juice if desired

Tomorrow at the store, I'm going to pick up some buffalo wings - and we'll whip us up some hot sauce n' wings!! Stay tuned...

*I am chicken, so I added 1/2 can of tomato paste before tasting it. I ended up using the whole can of tomato paste and about 1 T of lemon juice. It has good heat - but isn't scorching hot.
**Have a glass of cold milk nearby just in case. If you are like me - you'll need it. It has been scientifically proven that milk is the best thing to curb heat:)