Homemade Chili Powder

This past summer I grew chili peppers for the first time.  I ordered and planted seed from a mild variety.  They grew beautiful plants and peppers.  No insects on plants or peppers.  The peppers ranged in size from plump 6 to 9 inches and ripened to the most amazing red color.  I made ristras and hung them in my kitchen to dry.  Today I piled them upon the table top to begin to make my homemade chili powder.

Some of the peppers I picked before they were ripened on the plant did not ripen properly in the house.  I'll not make that mistake again but they did not go to waste.  The chickens liked them.

 I began preparing my peppers by breaking the stems from the peppers.

Using a small pair of scissors, I then slit them open to remove the dried seeds and ribs.  Although these were mild peppers you will still want to use gloves while handling peppers. Ask me how I know?

 I don't think I will need to order seeds again!

I filled my blender with the cleaned peppers and turned the blender on using the next to the highest setting.  I had to rock the blender gently to get all of the peppers to the blades to be ground.

After grinding all of the peppers I had a little more than 2 cups of ground pepper.

To each cup I added 1/2 cup of oregano Mexican is best but all I had was the regular.  1/2 cup of granulated garlic you can use powder and 1/2 cup of cumin.  You can add ground cayenne pepper as well but since my mild peppers had a little heat I did not as grandson shares a lot of meals with us.

I placed all of the ingredients back into the blender to get it all good and mixed and then spooned it into my clean, dry jars.  I ended up with about 4 cups of finished product.

The next round of cool fall weather, I will make a big pot of chili and use my fresh homemade chili powder.