I love chiles. I grow them in my garden with varying degrees of success. I love the different flavours and different heat levels.

I've successfully grown Habaneros in the past, although I have none right now. We dried some of them in the oven; they give off an amazing citrus/caramel aroma. They do have a similar flavour, but unfortunately the heat sometimes gets in the way. We made hot oil with the dried ones. I gave some fresh ones to a friend who made habanero poppers - with halved habaneros. It nearly killed me. I love hot food, but I was unable to speak for 15 minutes after eating just one. And they had no milk in the house.

I grew some nice little Thai dragon peppers from seeds - they are established now and grow like weeds from the fallen chiles that didn't get used. They are maybe an inch long, but they have a similar dusty flavour to the chiles that indian restaurants in the UK use. (Most US indian restaurants are lazy and use Jalapenos - the flavour is all wrong for most dishes). I always use them in thai food and used to put them in curries.

Eventually I did get some proper Indian seeds from a friend. The chiles are about 3-4 inches long and are skinny and knobbly, about the thickness of a green bean. They look a bit like a Cayenne. They also grow well and are now growing like weeds. The plants are about 5 feet tall.

I've got a bizarre lantern shaped "squash pepper". The flavour isn't all that great, but visually they are amazing.

Sadly I've had no success with bell peppers or poblano peppers (which are fantastic when stuffed with goats cheese). I've had limited success growing Anaheims, though they always suffer from mildew. And I did have a bright orange "Bulgarian Carrot Pepper" that looked great and had a lovely flavour, but I only ever got a handful of peppers off it before it dies and I've not managed to grow it again since.

I love painfully hot food! This year we grew Serranos, Red Cherry, Cayanne, Thai, and Habaneros. Loved them all but the Red Cherry. Good heat but way too many seads. Habanero poppers are good, but my signature appetizer is a jumbo shrimp stuffed with water chestnut and Habanero and wrapped in prosciutto and thrown on the grill and dunked in melted butter. Mmmmmmm.