Better Home Cooking Basics: #40 Wear Gloves when Working with Chili Peppers.

This is one of those do-what-I-say-not-as-I-do lessons. A few years ago I made some spicy guacamole by grating jalapeno peppers into my mixture - bare handed. Turns out my hands felt like they were burning for hours afterwards. I tried everything from soaking them in alcohol to milk. Milk seems to have the most cooling effect, fyi.

This past weekend when I was making harissa I barely touched the chili peppers I was working with but I swear the skin on my hands has memory burn or something because they started to sting a little bit. A few hours after making the harissa I washed my face & smoothed on some moisturizer. To my surprise there were still chili oils in my fingers & now on my face which was burning. I quickly swabbed my face with cotton pads soaked in milk & the burning slowly went away.  The moral of this story is - wear gloves when working with peppers. Oh & don't dare touch your eyes if you haven't - ouch!


Get more of my better home cooking basics here.

Green Harissa

When we were upstate we bought a (now-I-realize-huge) bag of fresh chili peppers. I’ve used one or two for different things but wasn't sure what to do with all the others. Then I remembered I could make harissa - a spicy paste that I love to eat on falafel (this is my favorite falafel place EVER!). I’ve never made it before so I took to the inner webs & combined a bunch of recipes I found & then tossed in some greens & herbs like I do when I make pesto.

You can use this super spicy green harissa paste like you would hot sauce. You can use it on chicken, veggies, seafood, anything really. It’s super hot so just a little dab will do ya!