[conspire] Food for this coming Saturday: Kung Pao dish, pies

[Rick Moen]

First, I have a bunch of scheduling conflicts over the next couple
months: 

Sat. Oct. 27:  NO CONFLICT.  This Saturday.  See you there!
Sat. Nov. 10:  Deirdre and I will be out of the country for the weekend 
               (in Guatemala).
Sat. Nov. 25:  We'll be at LosCon in Los Angeles 
Sat. Dec.  8:  NO CONFLICT.
Sat. Dec. 22:  We'll be on a Carribean cruise, including Montserrat.

So, only one Saturday each in October and December, and none at all
during November.  Sorry about that; it's just the way the calendar
worked out.


However, I do look forward to this Saturday, and am trying to come up
with some particularly delicious dish using the fresh kung pao peppers
I've been harvesting in my garden.  Of all the pepper plants we grew
this season, the kung pao has been the champion, producing like mad.
(Here we are in late October, and it's _still_ putting out new ones.)

You might be thinking:  Oh, no, not that burn-your-mouth spicy stuff!
However, it doesn't have to be that way.  Kung paos are a recently bred
hybrid pepper classified as _medium_ hot.  Habaneros are about 10x as
hot, and serranos are about 3x as hot.  Still, you don't want to
overpower food -- and I'm going to be careful to underplay them so that
they support the dish rather than leading.

The path of least resistance would be a wok recipe, something like this:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1945,144165-226200,00.html
I may make that -- or look for something more creative.

And I plan to bake pumpkin pies.