OK, I am beginning to think that what I am looking for is drying the peppers, then pan roasting in just a bit of oil over a high heat. The peppers I am talking about are definitely dried and roasted, as I can side order them dry, without being added to a dish. They keep forever, because they are dried, but still roasted, and it's that taosted, roasted flavor I want to capture. The Chinese restaurants apparently order these, they do not roast them in the kitchen. They are indeed used as a base for what they sometimes call chile pepper sauce, with the peppers crumbled and then cooked in oil. I will experiment some, and see what works. Here is a bizarre twist to my story.... I had a bunch of hot cherry, cayenne, calico (a very rare unique small hot pepper hybrid based on the Brazilian Rainbow pepper)all sitting in a windpw sill, ready to be planted. A sparrow got into the house. Went nuts trying to fly through this window, and all the seeds got mixed up. These seeds were all sown outdoors (my potted indoor seedlings all died, but that's another story) so I had no idea what would come up, except for the rare calicos, which were seperate. The peppers, all late since they were sown outside, looked like Cayennes. But, they grow striaght up in huge clumps at the top of the plant and number from 15 to 20 per clump. They are shaped like cayennes, but none have turned red. My friend thinks they are some sort of hot chile (they are freakin hot) but I have no clue where I might have gotten any chile seeds.... so I call them my mystery peppers. Now, I did unwittingly keep some of these chinese "roasted" peppers, and they were in the bird's flight path as it freaked out spreading my seeds everywhere. I figured, later on, if they were roasted, they would never germinate. Duh moment. Do I sound like some sort of madman yet? LOL.... so I have no clue as to what these peppers are, but do know they have heat, are tasty, and as of yet, remain green. So, I will experiment woth roasting methods and report back.... anyone who happens onto this thread can ask me for some calico pepper seeds. They are considered to be ornamentals, but are very much like Bolivian Rainbows.... purple/green leaves, mostly purple peppers, but if left to mature will live up to the name... calico... striped slightly striated streaks of purple, yellow, green, red and pink coloring on rather prolific lima bean sized fruit. They have a smoky, and otherwise too unique to describe flavor. I have a friend (who gave me these calicos) that seems to have a jalepeno/calico hybrid of some sort.... and he did not grow any jalepenos this year. A natural hybrid perhaps? Fruit is dark purple on one side, green on the other.... irregular shape like a calico, but half the size of a jalepeno. It's been a strange year for peppers around here....lol. Any more dry roasting method suggestions would be welcome.

These are my seed purchases for 2009 some of these I am planting early 2010 Abe Lincoln Airyleaf Alicante Amana Orange Amish Red Anna Russian Arkansas Traveler Azoychka Beefsteak Black Ethiopian Black Krim Black Pear Black Plum Black Prince Black Russian Black Zebra Box Car Willie Bradley Brandywine Red Brown Berry Buckbee's New 50 Day Camp Joy Carbon Ceylon Creole Cuostralee Delicious Djena Lee's Golden Girl Dona Druzba Earl of Edgecombe Ella's Pink Plum Eva Purple Ball Evergreen Faribo Goldhart Fireworks Galinas Garden Peach German Red Strawberry Glamour Glasnost Green Grape Green Zebra Grosse Ronde Hezhou Hillbilly - West Virginia Illini Star Italian Tree Jaune Flamme' Kellogg's Breakfast Kennington's Big Red Lemmony Lida Ukrainian Lime Green Salad - Det Malinowski Manalucie Mariannas Peace Moon Glow Moskovich - semi det Mule Team Nyagous Old Virginia Omar's Lebanese Orange Strawberry Ozark Pink Pantano Romanesco Paul Robeson Ponderosa Red Porter Porters Dark Cherry Prudens Purple Purple Calabash Red Zebra Riesentraube Rose Russo Italia Toggeta Schellenberg's Favorite Shirley Amish Red Sisters Slava Soldacki St Pierre Stone Stupice Sunray Sunsets Red Horizon Suoer Snow White Tangerine Thessaloniki Tigerella Tigerella Tommy Toe Trip L Crop Valencia Wins All or Winsall

Most every year someone burns the deck off their house when the oil overflows and ignites. Mostly yuppies because rednecks instinctivly put stuff out in the yard. A buddy uses his for a high powered canning operation he has set up in his pole barn. They make excellent corn boilers and fish fryers. In the winter a wind shield is required or the oil won't heat very well. Hillbillies have them best turkey fryers with all the curly tubes coming out of the top coverting corn sqeezin's into medicine.... the side handles are handy when following revnuers around the mountain top. As always dogs, children, and the very drunk should not be allowed around them. : ) lyra

FOAS,I have pretty much stayed out of the sous vide discussions but I'll jump in this time. I tried half a dozen or so stove top sous vide experiments last winter and this spring with success in all but one attempt (although bemoaning having to listen for the alert beep of the probe thermometer when the temperature fluctuated). The one failure was with lamb shanks which came out tasting so gamey that they became dogfood. They were large shanks and maybe from an older animal. They were seasoned with a little salt, pepper, garlic and bits of preserved lemon and should have been great. I think the fault was with the meat and not the method. This spring Max got me a Sous Vide Magic temp. controller and a Fresh Meals Magic bubbler/heater that came with an 18 liter Cambro type vertical container and lid. I would say that on average I use the entire setup about once every ten days. I like that you can cook more than one kind of meat at time, as long as they cook at the same temperature and as long as you write down and set timers for the amount of time each meat requires. I use the heater with my ten cup (probably six quart water capacity) rice cooker for cooking smaller amounts of meat and bringing previously sous vide cooked and frozen meats up to a serving temp. I would say I use the rice cooker setup at least 5 times a month. I have a two and a half pound chuck roast reheating now, and what I have learned about chuck roast is that I should cut and seal it in smaller amounts, more like a pound, because while it reheats and sears beautifully ONCE, it is not so great if you have leftovers at that point. Although Oliver, the 76 pound poodle in the house, thinks they are wonderful so nothing is wasted. As with anything there is a learning curve and I have kept notes on what I've cooked, the time and temperature, and whether any adjustments needed to be made in the future. I'm not sure how or if altitude affects the whole process. I have Doug Baldwins book and since he is at the University of Colorado here in Boulder I can only assume that since his book does not address altitude there are no modifications needed. My questions, earlier this year, about seasoning cast iron pans were in order to have more successful post sous vide searing and I do now have a number of well seasoned pans that I'm happy with and use them and my cast iron grill pan to do most of the finishing. We are only a two person household and don't eat dinner at the same time every day (basically we eat late, and later) so it is a great convenience to just be able pull something out of the freezer and thaw and heat in 45 to 60 minutes. Of course there are many other ways of achieving a good and quick dinner and I use them too. The meats that I have cooked repeatedly and like are: eye of round, cooked to just below med rare with one dinner using the hot roast and the rest chilled, sliced thinly, frozen and used for sandwich meat (beefy red-pink all the way through and tender); pork loin done the same way as a roast and sandwich meat and also with one inch thick boneless slices to finish as pork chops (pork cooked to 138�), boneless, skinless chicken breasts to use in many ways, chicken hindquarters bone in skin on cooked in a confit style; short ribs; chuck roast, lamb shoulder chops (very successful unlike my one attempt with shanks), ribeye steaks and prime grade sirloin steak. Only once did I cook pork too long and noticed that it was harder to slice neatly and had a slightly softer texture than I would have liked. So I'm glad I have it, I wouldn't want it to be only cooking method for these meats but we have been pleased with the results. I haven't tried fish in it because fish is so quick to cook in other ways but I'm sure I'll get around to trying salmon since one of our favorite ways with that is low/slow roasted at 225�. I haven't tried eggs, or vegetables, but I am intrigued with using it for yogurt and dulce de leche. Lee P.S. You are probably right about the sub $100. version, but wait we'll send you two, on a late nite infomercial - someone is already marketing a modified deepfryer/sous vide unit.