This last week I have really benefited gastronomically from having great friends. I asked one of my Jamaican coworkers where she sources scotch bonnet peppers and she said that you can’t find them in Austin but her sister can get them in Florida. Well lucky for me she went to visit her sister last weekend and I got a bag of scotch bonnets, the hottest pepper there is. I read somewhere that if you don’t cut them up but just throw ‘um whole in the pot you get the flavor without all the heat so that is what I did. This recipe is basically from Delicious Jamaica but I thought I would blog it because I made it even lazier (canned beans) and it still turned out fantastic. It has a laziness factor of 3, you do have to do some cooking but it takes less than 5 minutes of total work.

Lazy Jamaican Peas

1 can of water

1 scotch bonnet or other hot pepper

2 scallions

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp allspice

2 whole cloves garlic

Throw everything in a pot and let it simmer away for about a half hour or whenever it is starting to look more like stew. Then start the rice or the quinoa and add

1/2 cup of onions chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

salt

pepper

when the grain is done remove the pepper, scallions, garlic cloves and bay leaves and top the peas with chives if you like!

The chives came from my friend Krys who also brought me a boatload of tomatoes, including this monster:I am excited to spend the weekend eating tomatoes!

I was feeling really down yesterday so I stopped by a gardening store called The Great Outdoors on South Congress, these smurf gnomes really cheered me up.but not nearly as much as this cactus did!

Enjoy the longest days of the year!!!!