In attempting to use up my glut of apples (they are finally all gone!!!), I wanted to do a chutney of some sort. But most of the recipes call for raisins, and at the moment, I don’t have safe raisins I can buy at the store because most of them have sunflower oil all over them. I thought about it, but I drew the line at dehydrating some grapes so I could have chutney.  So I considered other options. I found an apple habanero hot sauce recipe, but I also wanted another flavor in it. I had some cranberries in the freezer, so I decided they’d be good. This hot sauce is lovely, but really vicious. I used six fairly large habanero peppers, but you can switch them out for milder peppers or cut the number back a bit.  This recipe makes about 3 cups, so depending on your hot sauce usage, you may want to cut the recipe in half.

Apple Cranberry Habanero Hot Sauce

• 2 large cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 shallot or small onion, diced
• 1 Tablespoon of fresh ginger, diced
• 3 cups of peeled, cored and chopped apples (I used a mix from my apple trees out back, mostly McIntosh and Galas.)
• 1 cup of fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 cup of apple cider vinegar (I used Bragg’s as it is generally safest for people with corn allergies)
• 2/3 cup of white sugar
• 2/3 cup of brown sugar
• 6 large habanero peppers, destemmed, deseeded and chopped
• 2 teaspoons of salt
• a small amount of safe for you oil to cook with (I used grape seed oil)

In a large saucepan, over medium high heat, sauté the garlic, shallot/onion, and in ginger in your safe oil until soft.

Add the apples and cranberries and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the vinegar and bring the mixture to a boil. Then add the white and brown sugar and stir until it dissolves.

Add the habanero peppers and simmer over medium low heat for 30 minutes.

Put the mixture in a blender and puree it until smooth.

At this point, you can use the sauce as it is, or you can strain it to remove any seeds, pepper and cranberry skins that haven’t been broken down. You may need to use a spatula to press the sauce through the strainer.

Refrigerate the sauce and use often. You can also freeze it if you think you won’t use it soon enough.

Enjoy!