A Little Sweet, A Little Spicy

When The Holbs and I were fresh-faced babies living in Utah we used to like to go to this one sandwich place we discovered called Hogwarts Deli.

Actually it is called Hagermann's Deli but we called it Hogwarts on account of The Holbs is adorable and thought the H in the logo looked like the H in Harry Potter, and also Hagermann's sounds something like Hogwarts, though admittedly not much like Hogwarts, but it stuck and we went there a lot and here is why:

Jalepeno Jelly.

Have you had their turkey sandwich with the jalepeno jelly?

Goodness to heavens it is one of the best things in Utah.

I had made plans last year to drive down to the Utah parts to visit one Ms. Kalli Keister and also to bask in the fertility capital of America and maybe get my downstairs parts a moving and also also to buy a jar or two of the jalepeno jelly from Hagermann's because it has haunted me lo these many years since we hitched up our wagons and moved away from Zion.

Whew.

I didn't get down to Utah right away, and I never did meet up with the Verbeck, but I did get to family reunion in the valley and when I was there, I did it, I dragged my whole family plus my Aunt Gini to Hagermann's and I bought me some jalepeno jelly. I was so excited to bring it home to The Holbs. We were going to eat like kings!

But then the lady at airport security took it from me because it was over the 3 oz limit and it wasn't baby food.

I tried reasoning with the woman.

I tried begging.

Please, it's from Hagermann's! I wailed pathetically.

I know, I love this stuff, she said back.

It was tragical. And I cried. I actually, literally cried, all the way from security to the terminal. (I think I was PMSing?) You guys, it was hard on me.

But then, at the Farmer's Market a few weeks back, my eye happened to catch a greenish glow emanating from a small jar in a booth, and I just knew it, I knew before I even got there, I knew that it was going to be jalepeno jelly, and that it was going to be mine. (Door closes/window opens sort of thing.)

It was good but it was missing something, I'm still not sure what.

Dinner with Annie Pies this week yielded a little treat, just for you, I mean me.

You see, Anne's boyfriend is the manager of a restaurant in town, a restaurant that just happens to have a delectable jalepeno jelly concoction of its own, and get this, this manager boyfriend of Anne's just happened to have given in his two weeks' notice, and so this manager boyfriend of Anne's was particularly pleased to divulge in a little top secret of his own, if you know what I mean.

I promised never to tell their recipe for jalepeno jelly so long as I lived.

So of course here it is:

A Top Secret Jalepeno Jelly Recipe

Brought to you by a disgruntled almost former employee,

I won't name names, you can't make me!

(Robert!)

• One small jar of your favorite fruit preserves. (The restaurant uses boysenberry. I tried sugar-free blueberry and it was out of this world. Apricot, peach, huckleberry, raspberry, these all sound good to me, too.)
• 2 oz Hatch's canned sliced jalepenos (about half a small can)

1. Add jelly and sliced jalepenos to cuisinart

2. And blend and blend and blend

3. Serve chilled, preferably with the mini cornbread muffins I made for a party recently

(I'll tell you more about this one later)

It's easier than you'd think, and so good.

Stick it, Airport Woman!

(The Holbs tried the jalepeno jelly with peanut butter, a little PBJ with a kick.)

(He says it was on purpose, and that it even tasted good.)

(I have my doubts, I like it with turkey.)