And living in Scotland it's not like there's a chilli farm round every corner! However, the good news is that here in the Kingdom of Fife we've had the lovely ladies at Chillilicious around for quite a while now, they make lots of lovely chilli based goodies (I get twitchy if I don't have a pot of their chilli piccalilli in the fridge) as well as chilli inspired fused glass in their workshop in Ceres. Read about their yummy goodies in my old post here.
But now for the GREAT news!!! My little corner of the Kingdom is now home to a new up and coming chilli farm! YES! Right here in Dunfermline, Alan Stenhouse is working hard to bring us Spice of Fife! It looks like it's going to be a great thing for the area if you like using chillis, he's got greenhouses packed with beautiful, flourishing chilli plants and lots of different varieties. Have a look at the Facebook page for some great photos of the plants developing. The recent warm weather has created a little tropical paradise (well, if you're a chilli plant!). And he knows his stuff, if you're not sure which variety of chilli will work best for whatever you are making, ask him!
You can find him on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/SpiceOfFife
on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/SpiceOfFife
and at the website here:http://spiceoffife.co.uk/
If you are planning to go to The Great Scottish Brave Harvest Chilli Festival 2013 at Scone Palace on 21st and 22nd September (yes, a chilli festival in Scotland!!), Alan will be there with lots of chilli goodies. I've been lucky enough to try his strawberry based hot sauce, Chilli Berry Punch, as well as his Chilli Sookers - hard boiled sweets in a variety of heats to suit every chilli lovers taste buds!
We all loved the hot sauce, the strawberry base is really unusual but works so well with the chilli heat. We've had it with slow cooked Mexican beef, on cheese sandwiches, I even mixed some up with some cider vinegar to make a salad dressing! And the sweets were fab, really different and sweet and hot all at the same time, lovely!!
As well as these products, there's also strawberry, black pepper and chilli jam (delicious!), chutney, chilli oils (using Scottish rapeseed, and since I'm always banging on about how great this oil is that makes me VERY happy!), and chilli toffee. They can even make little pots of jam and chutney as wedding favours for your big day; almost makes me want to find a husband. Almost... Nah!
There's lots of other yummy stuff in the pipeline too, including chilli cheese, chilli chocolate and chilli ice cream which I'm particularly intrigued by!
But even more exciting than all of the chilli products is the fact that Spice of Fife are developing a chilli club in the area. Membership will be restricted to 100 members in 2014 and for a one-off payment of £27.50 you will receive the following:-
- A Personalised Gift Card for 2014 Membership
- Selection of Chilli Seeds to grow your own
- 3 Chilli Plants (April/May)
- Bottle of Chilli Liquid Feed to help plants grow
- Bottle of Spice of Fife Chilli Oil
- Jar of Spice of Fife Chilli Jam
- Bottle of Spice of Fife Chilli Hot Sauce
- 10% discount on any product purchases made in 2014
- Free Delivery to KY11 / KY12 postcodes
Now, I have tried to grow chillis before and I did actually manage, but then went on holiday and the plants got fried at the window. Oops. I really am not green fingered! But for those of you who manage to keep things alive (I have succeeded at keeping a boy and a dog alive, that's my limit!) and love chillis this is a great thing. You can also buy individual plants from Spice of Fife at the moment, get in touch with them to see what is available. You might just pick up a variety that you wouldn't be able to buy in a local garden centre.
All very exciting!
All of this has reminded me that I have a little pot of strawberry, black pepper and chilli jam in the fridge. I'm thinking a wee cup of tea and some toast and jam could be the order of the day... :)
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