Your Best Chili Pepper Recipe

The ingredients you'll need for the tacos: orange juice, garlic, shallot, pork belly, honey, red onion, jalapeno, tortillas, jicama, watermelon, peppercorns, bay leaf, allspice, lime and cilantro.  

A simple savory-sweet brine -- just honey, bay leaves, salt and black peppercorns diluted with water -- gets the pork off on a good foot (belly?).

Bring it to a boil, just to dissolve the salt and honey and release the bay and peppercorn's flavors.

Bay lilypads and peppercorn water skeeters.

Go go brine!

You want the brine to be cool when you dump it on the pork (so it doesn't start cooking prematurely) -- an ice bath helps to get there faster.

Still life in pork. a la Alison calls for a 6-7 hour brine in the fridge -- but if you don't have that long, it will still be good.

The pork belly we found still had the ribs attached (bonus dinner -- already brined!). Here's how we separated the two after patting them dry.

1-inch slabs, ready to move on to the next phase: the braise.

The simplest of spice rubs: salt, pepper, allspice.

Lots of allspice (trust us).

Braise kickoff -- first sear the slabs on all sides. They're about to get really pretty.

Oooh.

Jalapeno's first role: adding heat to the braising liquid. (Role #2 is in the kicky salsa.)

Get that pork out of the way to sweat the jalapeno, shallot and garlic.

Pork returns to the stage. OJ + chicken stock: not part of a balanced breakfast. But part of a killer pork braise? Yes.

Summer = spicy fruit salsa.

We ended up with a rather beastly jicama -- peeling with a vegetable peeler kind of worked.

But a chef's knife really took care of business.

Team salsa!

Watermelon is a funny shape to dice. We got creative.

The colors (and flavors) of summer.

Lime brightens and tamps down the sweetness.

A quick stir.

Party time.

The ingredients: onion, salt, biscuits (we made these), milk, butter, roasted poblanos and flour.  

Before we made the gravy, we decided to whip up some biscuits.  

This recipe has cream in it, so the biscuits are rich and tender.  

The dough also happens to be very forgiving.  

After a gentle knead, we patted the dough into a circle.  

And cut some biscuits.  

A little melted butter helps to brown the tops.  

Voila! Now, onto the gravy...  

We roasted the poblanos under the broiler, as arielleclementine suggests.  

Peeled and seeded, the poblanos yield to Amanda's knife.  

To start the gravy, we browned the onions in butter and then stirred in the flour.  

Adding the milk gradually will keep your gravy smooth and lump-free.  

That, and constant whisking!  

The chopped poblanos go in at the very end, which keeps their flavor nice and fresh.  

Breakfast is served!