Culinary Disasters

When a recipe calls for chili powder what is the first thing you do?  If you are like most people you reach in the cupboard for that can that says chili powder.  Starting today you are stopping that and placing that jar in the trashcan where it belongs.  It all tastes nasty and god knows what is actually in it. 

This blend is what I use for my base.  The reason for the zero salt, black pepper, and other herbs is this gives me full control over how much salt and other stuff goes into the dish.  No worries if the salt content in the chili powder is going to throw everything off when I add a TB to chili.

The other advantage is unlike those ground spices sitting in your cabinet that maybe have 6 months tops before they turn to tasteless garbage a dried chili pepper will last years before losing flavor. 

Plus this takes a whole whopping 10 minutes to make and will net you about 6 TB of chili powder. 

For this chili powder you are going to need:

• 2 dried chipotle peppers
• 2 dried ancho chili peppers
• 2 dried passilla peppers
• 2 dried guajillo peppers
• 1 TB of whole cumin seeds

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.  Place the whole peppers on a oven safe container.  Place the peppers in the oven for 5 minutes.  This will get any excess moisture out of the peppers.  Plus it also adds a great smell to the kitchen.

While the chili peppers are in the oven in a non-stick skillet over medium heat add in the cumin seeds.  Toss around for a couple of minutes till they become lightly toasted and are fragrant.

Discard the tops of the peppers and the seeds.  Add everything to your coffee grinder and grind into a powder.

Store the powder in an airtight container for a couple of months.

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