This is not a recipe; well, not for food. We have an ornamental pepper plant in our garden, and we have a problem with squirrels noshing on Halloween pumpkins sitting decoratively on our porch. The object at hand today is the little ornamental pepper.
We decided to taste the cute little thing recently, The tempting red flesh had almost no flavor, and no spice. But then I chewed a seed. You know that kind of heat that lets you hear colors? That’s what it was like. And so (once I was breathing normally) I was inspired to make a squirrel repellent pumpkin preserver.
I cut open two peppers, and dried them for a few days. Then I muddled them with some canola oil in a mortar and pestle. Finally the mixture was stored in a jar with more oil for a few days. Then carefully applied to the pumpkin with a silicone brush, and the pumpkin then set out for neighbors to admire. Carefully not for the sake of the pumpkin, but so as not to get the truly hot (in the Scoville sense) oil on my hands.
So now our pumpkin can sit safely on the porch, defended from squirrels and from mold and rot (capsaicin acutually evolved as an anti-fungal agent in peppers).
The Object At Hand 
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