Hot Peppers and Hot Weather

I always try to find the silver lining in things. If you look hard enough, you can usually find something positive in every situation. 

The good thing about this pandemic is that I've gotten a lot of work out of Donna around the house. Closets have been cleaned out, the carpets and floors have all been steam cleaned, the pantry has been re-organized, and so on and so on. Earlier this week, the old girl pickled some jalapenos.

The finished product -- some tasty pickled hot and spicy jalapenos. Eat your heart out, Larry!

Have you noticed that throughout this pandemic there are certain things you just can't get at the store anymore? I'm not talking things like toilet paper and paper towels, things that were grabbed up early by those in a panic. I'm just talking about regular every day items. For example, I enjoy the HEB cinnamon waffles, and I've not been able to find any of these in months. Neither Donna nor I drink caffeine if we can help it. Now, we can find plenty of caffeine-free coffee in all the stores, but caffeine-free drinks are another story. We've really had trouble finding diet caffeine-free Cokes and Dr. Peppers. And, to return to my pepper story, I enjoy sweet pickled jalapeno peppers. Sure, I can find sliced jalapenos everywhere, but not sweet ones. Years ago, we use to frequent El Chico restaurants, and they would provide a small dish of sweet and spicy jalapenos, onions, and carrots. I really enjoyed those.

The Fire Eater at work.

So, we bought a large batch of jalapenos, and Donna (aka "The Fire Eater") made a batch of sweet and spicy jalapenos. We've been eating some of the jalapenos out of the batch with our lunch. Donna likes to stuff them with cheese and heat them. Well, this batch has a good bite, more so than most batches, so I'm wondering what the pickled ones Donna made will taste like. But I'm looking forward to it.

The makings of one of my favorite treats. I put them in soup, in pasta dishes, on nachos, and just about anything else.

And speaking of hot, we are about to embark on at least one week of triple digit temps, with Sunday and Monday predicted to reach 110. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm still walking early, and it is already hot when I start my walk at 6:00 or so. Since it is getting light later and later, it won't be long until I'm starting my walk at 6:15 or later. We're a long way from autumn; there's a lot of hot ahead of me!

The early moon was lovely earlier in the week as it danced in and out of the clouds. I wish I had a better camera to catch such images; this is the best I can do at this time. It does not do the beauty of the morning justice, though.

Early morning moon sinking in the west.