Trinidad Scorpion Pepper

For many years I've been growing what was the World's Hottest Pepper, the Bhut Jolokia, or Ghost Pepper. In my book, Make Your Own Hot Sauce, I give some background of the pepper and offer a few recipes in using it in hot sauce. This year for the first time, I'm growing the current record holder for the world's hottest pepper, the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion. Later today I'll be making a batch of hot sauce with both of these peppers.

The two world's hottest peppers.

Depending on the source (I accept the New Mexico State University Chili Pepper Institute's measurements) the heat, measured in Schoville Heat Units, or SHU, can vary slightly. They rate the Ghost pepper at 330,000 to 1,023,310 SHUs. The new record holder, the Scorpion, weighs in at 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 SHUs.

In other words, it's pretty darned hot! So you may wonder, why would anyone want peppers that hot? Well, for the guys (and it IS a guy thing) who crossed the ghost pepper with a Red Savina habanero pepper and came up with the Scorpion, it means bragging rights. It also means they can license seed companies to sell their seed, and make a profit. But beyond that, believe it or not, these intensely hot peppers, have flavor, as well. Flavors not necessarily found in other peppers. And you don't eat them raw, or you shouldn't because it can be dangerous. But if you mix them with other kinds of peppers and ingredients, you get the flavor and not as much of the heat. To give an idea of where this heat comes on the giant pepper heat scale, keep in mind the Scorpion comes in at between one million and half and two million heat units. For comparison, look at the Jalapeño and Cayenne listing, below.

A Jalapeño pepper is rated at 3,500 to 8,000 SHUs. And my favorite for roasting and eating, the Poblano, is almost without heat, with 1,000 to 2,500 SHUs.

But if I combine some roasted Poblanos, a few Jalapeños, onions, garlic, vinegar, cilantro and a couple of Ghost peppers and a Scorpion, it will be a tasty hot sauce for just about anything I put it on. I'm getting ready to do a program on making hot sauce for the Ozarks Area Community Congress coming up next weekend and we'll have some tasting of my different sauces. This one I'll probably name, Two Ghosts and a Scorpion.

Various hot sauces I've made so far.

Some Help for PTSD Sufferers

Soldiers Suffering from PTSD Have a New Champion!

There’s plenty of evidence for the usefulness of alternative therapies in treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). High among those useful therapies, based on years of reports from our customers, are sleep pillows, also known as dream pillows. Laugh, scoff or ridicule as you wish. but this method has helped thousands of people over the years.

I began writing about dream pillows and their effects over 25 years ago. You can read my experiences and what convinced me, by clicking here and looking through my archives. I first learned about dream/sleep pillows from a pharmacist, and you can see the formula he made for me by clicking here, then scrolling down. And if you would like to read the story of someone who helped a bunch of Vietnam vets who all suffered from flash-back nightmares, quieten their sleep, read this.

What I want most to tell you about is Elizabeth, a customer of ours who’s been buying dream pillow supplies from us, making restful sleep dream pillows and giving them away to soldiers and veterans who are suffering from PTSD. Every time she runs across someone who has a brother, father, son or spouse, who she learns is suffering from PTSD, she sends them a sleep pillow. The feedback she’s gotten, the gratitude, is simply amazing.

Because it’s a costly process to keep making and giving away sleep pillows, Elizabeth has created a non-profit group, the American Heroes Sleep Project, in order to help more soldiers and veterans. Her new website is here. Check it out, you can order a sleep pillow for yourself, or to give someone. She also has an option where you can buy one for yourself and she’ll send someone who’s suffering from PTSD a pillow also.

There’s no magic in why sleep pillows work, it’s based on how our minds process fragrances. You can read more in my book, Making Herbal Dream Pillows (Storey Publications), which you can buy from Amazon, or buy it from me on my website.

Over the 25 years I’ve been making, selling and educating people about dream pillows/sleep pillows, I have seen amazing results. From kids who have nightmares to Vietnam Vets who have flashbacks. From people who are on the stop-smoking patch (which causes nightmares in many people) to those who simply have trouble sleeping because of stress, over and over again, people tell me how helpful the pillows have been to them.

Go to the American Heroes Sleep Project and help out someone who’s suffering from PTSD. Read about their mission and what they're doing to help soldiers who are returning from combat missions with their healing. It certainly won’t hurt and for many, it is a great help.

Or maybe you are suffering from lack of sleep or night mares, or both. You will find better sleep and less nightmares using a sleep pillow. Thank you and pleasant dreams!

Mildew and Root Rot Problems in the Garden.

Powdery mildew can affect bee-balm (Monarda) as well as roses, squash and other plants.

Copyright Jim Long 2013; Ozarks Gardening

Cool, damp weather encourages a new set of problems in the garden. We’ve had rains, chilly nights, humid and cloudy days, all things which create conditions for fungus and mildew to grow. If let untreated, either of those can slow down or kill garden plants. There are some simple solutions and remedies that cost little and are effective. 

Powdery mildew is a condition you may find on squash, cucumber, melon and rose leaves. As the name implies, the leaves take on a white or gray, dusty coating. Powdery mildew starts as a small, round white spot on the leaves. In just a few days, the spot has grown to cover the entire leaf. Here’s a simple treatment that shows good results.

Mix up 1 part plain whole milk from the refrigerator with 9 parts water. Pour into a garden sprayer and spray the affected plants in early morning. Repeat the spraying twice a week until the mildew disappears. There’s lots of research showing plain milk is as effective as chemical fungicides, and it’s a whole lot cheaper and more safe. It’s also good to avoid excess fertilizer in cool, damp weather as that can encourage mildew problems, as well. 

Pepper plant suffering from root rot.

Root rot is another common problem when the weather is damp and cool. Plants appear to wilt and die for no apparent reason. Watering the plant makes the problem worse as the fungi, including Pythium, Rhizoctonia, Pytophthora and Fusarium, can be spread to other plants by water run-off. Here’s a simple treatment that costs almost nothing.

Cornmeal, worked into the soil before planting encourages the growth of beneficial bacteria that combats various fungi from growing (which is why I always recommend using agricultural cornmeal in your tomato beds in February and March). But simply sprinkling a half cup of agricultural cornmeal (or even plain, cheap cornmeal from the grocery store) around each plant is helpful. Work it into the soil around each plant to prevent root rot. For plants that are already affected, use the same method, but if the plant doesn’t show some response in about 10 days, pull up the plant and destroy it to prevent the fungus from spreading to other plants.

I haven’t tried this one, but if you have, let me know of your results: Farmers in India are using Coca Cola as a spray pesticide on crops instead of commercial pesticides, with good results. Either the sugar or the caffein (or both) seem to deter insect problems. I couldn’t find the ratio of Coke to water, but if you have tried this successfully, please let me know. 

You can find more of my stories and gardening information on my garden adventures blog,jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com. You can order my books and products from my website by clicking on this link:http://www.longcreekherbs.com. Happy Gardening!

One of my newest books is the Make Your Own Hot Sauce. Check it out on my website.

Big Flat City Park

 Copyright© Jim Long 2012
The Ozarks Mountaineer magazine

Some years ago I was traveling back and forth from Missouri down into Arkansas to the Ozark Folk Center. I gave programs there a number of times, helped with the garden and always felt a close connection to the Mountain View area.

Plaque commemorates efforts in the 1960s to upgrade the park.

Each time I drove south, I tried to take a different route to Mountain View and the Folk Center but over time my favorite route to drive was on Highway 14. There was very little traffic, the scenery wonderful and there were lots of real towns much like the ones where I grew up.

A dozen or more picnic areas dot the park.

I came to especially admire the town of Big Flat in Baxter County. Arkansas Highway 14 makes a sharp, 90 degree turn right in the middle of downtown (the town only has 105 people, according to the 2010 census) so downtown isn’t big. What made it remarkable, besides the old-style store fronts from the late 1880s, was a little roadside pavilion tucked between two stores. Nearly every time I drove past, regardless of time of day, there would be several men sitting at the tables, playing cards and visiting.

Well made, stone picnic tables abound.

Just outside of Big Flat to the north is one of the more remarkable city parks I have ever seen in a rural area. Big Flat City Park is used for weddings, family reunions, picnics, family gatherings as well as providing a welcome and beautiful rest stop for travelers. I have taken many a nap in my pickup truck, parked under the shade trees and I’ve eaten lots of picnic meals there, as well.

Small, rustic shelter for serving small groups.

Round table in smaller shelter.

 There are two large, group-sized barbecue pits on the grounds, (along with several smaller family-sized barbecue pits), a rustic outdoor kitchen/serving area and a large covered shelter for gatherings. There are smaller shelters, as well, for smaller groups’ picnics and numerous picnic tables and benches throughout the grounds.

A large shelter for big family gatherings, weddings and other events.

In looking at the park one would assume it was a WPA project from the 1930s but a plaque designates it as an Arkansas Farmers Union Green Thumb project, dedicated in 1969. A small shelter that contains the plaque, designates it the Uncle Willie Huffines Park Green Thumb Project, while an older sign out front still reads Big Flat City Park. It’s hard to tell, but my guess from the age of the stonework and the amount of stone buildings and shelters, is it was originally a WPA project with a serious renewal and update in the 1960s. Either way, it’s a unique park.

Round picnic area provides lots of seating and shade.

The picnic tables and benches are made from slabs of stone that were mined nearby. I’ve never counted the number of picnic tables, but there are a dozen or more. Little architectural features, created by the local workers, add charm to the park. The walls, posts, barbecues and everything are built of stone, but laid with thoughtfulness and attention to detail. For example, the stepping stone into one of the shelters is sandstone, with ripples for traction, obviously found in a stream where water had rippled over it for eons.

Ancient stalactites mark park entry.

The two entry posts on either side of the gateway into the park are made from large stalactites from some nearby cave. There’s a hand pump that used to bring up water from a dug well, but the park has been updated to have a drinking fountain and water from city water.

If you’re looking for a scenic drive and a delightful place for a picnic, in winter or summer, I highly recommend Big Flat City Park. It’s one of the amazing little secret places you’ll discover along less-traveled roads, and demonstrates well why Arkansas is still knows as the natural state.

Make Your Own Herb Seasonings

A dark, airy attic is the perfect place for drying herbs of any kind.

Copyright©Jim Long, 2012

Last night while I was making a pot of spaghetti sauce, I reached into the spice cabinet for my jar of Italian Seasoning. It was nearly empty, which reminded me I had not dried many herbs to replenish it. Fortunately there were plenty of fresh herbs in the garden to season the sauce, and those taste better anyway. But I will get busy this week putting together the ingredients for another jar of Italian Seasoning.

Lemon balm ready for drying.

Italian Seasoning, from my book, Great Herb Mixes You Can Make, needs (all dried): 2 parts marjoram, 4 parts basil, 2 parts oregano and 1 part crushed rosemary. Depending on the volume you want to make, parts can mean tablespoons, cups or pounds.

Springs of herbs ready for drying.

My method for drying herbs is to harvest stems with leaves, about 6 inches long, and tie 6 to 10 stems in a bundle, holding them together with a rubber band. I hang those in my drying room which is dark, airy and well-ventilated (an attic works well for this). I sometimes use my food dehydrator, which works really well, but this of year it’s filled with hot peppers drying.

You can put about twice this amount in the paper bag.

The other method that works well is to put 15 - 20 stems, a big handful, of the herb you want to dry into a brown paper bag. Fold the top closed, held with a clothespin or large paper clip, and toss it into the trunk of your car (or back seat if you don’t have a trunk). The paper slowly wicks away the moisture in the herbs, the paper keeps out sunlight, and the trunk of your car is often hot for much of every day. Give the bag a shake every 2 or 3 days to keep the herbs from compacting, and in about a week to 10 days, your bag of herbs will be crispy-dried and ready to use.

Herbs ready for drying in the car.

What not to do: Don’t hang herbs for drying in the kitchen. The light from household lighting breaks down the colors of the leaves, and when that happens, the essential oils that give the herb its unique flavor, will be lost. Additionally, drying this way leaves the herbs open to absorbing all your cooking and household smells - you end up with rosemary that smells more like bacon or pot roast, or even the family dog! Also, drying in the microwave isn't a good idea, either. Microwaves, by their design, vaporize moisture out of whatever is put in them. When the moisture is vaporized, so are the essential oils that give the herbs their flavor. You’ll have a great smelling microwave, and dried herbs that taste slightly better than hay.

Recipes and formulas for over 100 seasonings and projects.

Once the herbs are dried, crush the leaves from the stems, then measure the amounts to make the Italian Seasoning. Store your mixture in an airtight container in a dark place, like the kitchen cabinet or pantry. More seasoning mixes can be found in my book, Great Herb Mixes, which is available from my website (LongCreekHerbs.com) or from a store near you. Happy seasoning!

Biscuits and Real Sausage Gravy

Real biscuits, hot out of the oven.

No one knows exactly where, or who, concocted the first biscuits and gravy. We know where the first mechanical bread slicer was invented, by by Otto Rohwedder in Chillicothe, MO in 1928. The very first cone-shaped ice cream cone was created at the St. Louis Worlds Fair by Ernest Hamwi in 1904. Even the very first popsicle, invented by eleven year old Frank Epperson can be dated to 1905. But plain old “B & G,” as true lovers of the dish call it, can’t be pinned down to a specific beginning.

Some accounts track the dish to the early Colonists who needed a cheap food and something that was definitely not a British food. Others claim the dish comes from the sawmills in the South - thus the name, “sawmill gravy,” where cheap, fast and filling food was a necessity. A little meat, a lot of water and a bit of flour could make a whole skillet full over a campfire. No one knows the dish’s origins, but what is certain is that what was once poor people’s food, is now downright respectable. (Personally I doubt the “Colonial connection” simply because you can’t find the classic biscuits and gravy on the East Coast no matter how hard you try while other foods introduced by the Colonists remain in the region).

Pigs were brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1608, but had actually arrived on the continent a full century earlier with the first Spanish explorers. As the Spaniards looked for gold, some of those early hogs went feral in Florida and Georgia and became the early razorback hogs of the South. Because wild hogs were plentiful, and a pest, and domestic hogs became a staple on Southern farms, sausage became a base for a variety of foods, but most especially, sausage gravy. You couldn’t find a meal better than sausage gravy on biscuits to feed a large family and it became a staple of poor food all across the South and into the Midwest.

Biscuits and gravy can vary greatly by region. Head down to into Mississippi and you’ll encounter tomato gravy. It likely shows the influence of the early French in the region before the Louisiana Purchase. It requires approximately 4 tablespoons of bacon drippings, 4 tablespoons of flour, 2 large chopped-up tomatoes and about 2 cups of cold water. Once made, some cooks add crumbled bacon before spreading it over hot buttermilk biscuits. I’ve found it in restaurants as I travel. Like most restaurant gravies today, it has been cheapened and made from canned tomato soup with a little seasoning and is downright disgusting unless you grew up with it.

If you head down south into Arkansas, into Mississippi and northern Louisiana, you’ll encounter a completely different gravy served on biscuits - chocolate gravy. This is a truly Southern dish served as both a breakfast meal or sometimes served as a dessert in the evening. Chocolate gravy is made with 3/4 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, 1 level teaspoon of cocoa and a cup and a half of water. Once that’s boiled together and thickened, a touch of vanilla is added. It’s typically served over lavishly-buttered buttermilk biscuits.

The traditional red-eye gravy was born in the 1840s on a battlefield. A drunken, hung-over cook for General Andrew Jackson, poured hot coffee into ham juices and brownings from frying the ham and served it up on biscuits without having added flour to thicken it. Soon cooks all across the South were cooking up "The General's red-eye gravy."

Over in Southern Indiana, on down into Kentucky and Tennessee, you’ll find a completely different version of gravy on biscuits. It’s known as egg gravy, which is made by scrambling eggs in a skillet with bacon grease, adding flour and milk and then cooking to thicken. Meat and other ingredients are also sometimes added. If your gravy always has lumps, scrambled eggs is a good way to cover up the lumps!

The “real” gravy most of us in the Ozarks know and love is just plain sausage gravy. It’s simple, cheap and easy to make, yet this satisfying concoction has become almost impossible to find in restaurants. What you’ll find instead, is factory-made gravy out of a can. Wholesale restaurant suppliers deliver cases of gallon-sized cans of fake sausage gravy and all the “chef” has to do is to open the can, pour it into a pot and heat it. I can’t prove it, but I firmly believe that canned gravy is made from the worn-out grease from french fry deep fryers. If you read the list of ingredients on the can, you won’t find sausage listed anywhere, although some cans list, “artificial flavorings.” 

The even newer product that has replaced canned “sausage” gravy, is instant gravy. It comes in a pouch, you pour in some hot water and shake it up and you’ve got something called gravy. Hardees, Popeye and Shoneys, all use instant gravies. What was once a cheap, easy and filling staple, is now, even cheaper and easier but barely resembles the real thing. There must be an awful lot of people who wouldn’t agree with me, since the public keeps eating the artificial gravies in restaurants and evidently don’t complain.

You have to be careful in restaurants when you get away from the Ozarks. If you order biscuits and gravy in Kansas or beyond, or up north in Minnesota and Michigan, or Ohio eastward (if you can even find the dish served in those areas) you’re likely to be served brown gravy, made from canned, artificially-flavored beef stock. Beware when ordering chicken-fried steak, as well, you’ll likely be given fake brown gravy on top of that, too. That’s always a disappointment, so be sure to ask the wait person what kind of gravy you’ll be served. If they give you a blank stare and say what other kinds of gravy are there, order something else on the menu.

Real, old-fashioned sausage gravy.

There are regional variations of the classic sausage gravy, with some folks adding onions, others adding a dash of cayenne pepper, others swearing fresh-cracked black pepper, or crushed red pepper is the only way to fix the gravy, but over all, the recipe for the real thing remains the same as it has for centuries.

1 pound sausage (mild or hot)
3 tablespoons flour
Salt and lots of black pepper
2 to 3 cups milk

Crumble the raw sausage in a hot cast iron frying pan. Fry the sausage until there is no pink left. Add flour 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring quickly until a paste forms. Then add milk, 1 cup at a time. Stir briskly and cook the mixture until it thickens. Then pour it over fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits, split in half, buttered or not.

Drop biscuits or rolled, your choice!

 And the biscuits? You can buy those canned, frozen, instant or bakery-made but the old-fashioned biscuit is as follows:

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons lard or other shortening
1 cup buttermilk, chilled

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. With your fingertips, rub butter and shortening into dry ingredients until mixture looks like crumbs. Pour in the chilled buttermilk and stir to mix. Turn dough onto floured surface, dust with flour and fold dough over on itself 4 or 5 times. Roll out with a rolling pin or quart fruit jar until the dough is about an inch thick. Cut out biscuits with 2-inch cutter and place biscuits on a baking sheet so the biscuits are just touching. Bake until golden and fluffy, about 15-20 minutes.

Make the gravy while the biscuits are baking. This isn’t health food, but it certainly is a satisfying breakfast! Add some eggs and bacon and a few cups of coffee and you are tasting a real Ozarks tradition.

A breakfast that has a long and proud tradition.

Fall Gardens - It's Not Too Late to Plant

Another crop of zinnias can still be planted in August for late blooming.

Recent rains have dusted off the gardening spirit and renewed hope for a better harvest. It’s not too late to plant a variety of fall crops and still expect some fresh produce from your back yard.

Just a few weeks ago the seed that had been planted, withered in the soil before even getting above the ground. Now that we’re having some cooler days and there’s moisture in the soil, seed will germinate and grow rapidly.

Late summer garden.

This week I’ve been planting peas, both snap peas and regular shelling peas. If we have a late fall, even a light frost, the peas should produce a crop. One year I planted even later than this and mulched the plants with straw where they wintered over and started blooming in early March. And if the crop fails? I’ll till the plants under to help build up the soil.

Lettuce, radishes, spinach and kale can all be planted in August. Kale will easily winter over and the leaves are especially sweet and tasty in the cold months. Winter spinach, also, is at its best in the chilly season. Last year a fall planting of lettuce thrived throughout the winter and was still producing leaves in April. Many lettuces will withstand more cold than you might guess.

I’m planning on planting beets, as well, as they’re another crop that will withstand some cold. Young beets, cooked with the green tops, are worth the effort of a few minutes of planting time. Snap green beans and carrots can still be planted now, too. While many gardeners like to plant turnips in July, I never get the seed in the ground until mid to late August and always have a good crop. Last year I planted the regular purple-top turnips, along with some mild white ones and some bright red ones I found at Baker Creek Seed (rareseed.com). They all overwintered quite easily and I was still eating turnips in the spring.

These lettuces lived right through last winter and were still producing in April!

If you can find cabbage or cauliflower plants, those might produce provided we have a long, mild fall. If they aren’t ready by the first hard freeze, cover them during the night and help them along with some clear plastic. You’ll have to uncover them in the daytime, but those crops will withstand a lot of cold weather.

An added bonus for fall gardening is the lack of insect pests. Many bugs time their life cycles to the time when summer plants are at their best. Late season plantings avoids both the pests and the headaches of earlier in the year.

Visit my other blogs for more about my gardening adventures.