A lot of cross pollination questions on the site right now. Most years, I grow a pepper patch of mixed sweet & hot peppers - with the two often directly adjacent - and have not observed any heat in the sweet peppers. I don't entirely discount the possibility that crossed seeds might possess some heat... but sweet peppers are not generally eaten without cleaning them. If there were such heat, I would expect to feel it or smell it during cleaning, which has not been the case.

It's a recipe I got from this site, but I don't know who to attribute it to. Here's the recipe I cut and pasted, with my addition of the sugar. SALSA VERDE 7 Cups chopped, cored, green Tomatoes 5 to 10 Jalapeno Peppers, seeded and finely chopped 2 Cups finely chopped Red Onions 4 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped ü Cup Sugar 1/2 Cup Lime Juice 1/2 Cup loosely packed finely chopped Cilantro 2 Teaspoon ground Cumin, more to taste 2 Teaspoon dried Oregano 2 Tablespoons Salt 1 Teaspoon freshly ground Black Pepper In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and lime juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Stir in cilantro, cumin, oregano, salt, sugar and black pepper. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot salsa. Process both sizes in a BWB for 20 minutes. Makes about six 8-oz jars or 3 pint jars Obviously I doubled the recipe to accommodate the amount of tomatoes I had to use. As I said, it's quite good, just a little sour for my taste. Steve

You might want to also check out the Cooking Forum and Kitchens. This forum runs a little slower than either of those. But to my knowledge, cooking fuel will not affect food flavors. I suppose the microwaving water relates more to it being aerated more when brought to a boil on the cooktop than in a microwave. But I cook with gas on the cooktop and have electric ovens (dual fuel) and I wouldn't have it any other way. As the sayong goes YMMV. Here is a link that might be useful: Cooking forum

I sent my husband to the store the other day, which is something I do very rarely. He came back shocked! So now, he understands better why I do some of the things I do. I haven't really changed our diet, but have been upping my energy usage...not electricity, MY energy. :D Going across town to the cheaper grocery store instead of the one on the next block saves quite a bit..a head of iceburg lettuce at the closer store was $1.50 the other day, .79 cents at the cheaper store. At that store, I can also buy a 10 pound bag of chicken leg quarters for $6.99. I cut them up into legs & thighs, and then the back section gets used to make soup. .70 cents a pound for chicken is a heck of a lot better than the price of already cut pieces at the fancier store, which last I checked were at around $1.79 per pound. Buying various pork/beef roasts and cutting them into chops or steaks & using the trimmings to make ground meat is another thing that saves quite a bit. Buying family packs when they're on sale, and then separating the pieces of meat, wrapping and freezing them in meal sized portions (there's just the two of us) helps as well. When I was a kid, we were quite poor, and so I learned a lot of things about how to eat well on less so we do pretty well. I make a lot of Indian foods, a cuisine especially suited for using inexpensive ingredients, also Chinese & Thai which rely more on vegetables and inexpensive cuts of meat. My penchant for soups helps as well, because little is wasted. All in all, even with prices going up, I can't complain. We are blessed in this country with a bounty & variety of available foods unprecedented in the history of the world...and no matter how the grocery bill smarts, few of us work hard,all day long for just the handful of grain or legumes that will feed our family for one more day, like so many people do on this Earth.