So how are you guys doing with the ‘end of summer prep”?
Oh, sorry…you have no idea what I’m talking about??
Maybe none of you are frantically scurrying about, getting your hands on as much local produce as you can to somehow ‘preserve’ it for the winter.
Maybe it’s just me…
But it can’t be just me. I had a lot of you ask me soooo many questions this summer about gardening and what to do with all of this beautiful bounty.
So, I’m showing up in you inbox this week with yet another tip to fill your freezer with some local goodness…and this week it’s all about peppers!!
You can go to you local farmers market (and even most grocery stores are jumping on the bandwagon and bringing in boxes/bushels of local produce) and grab a box or bushel of peppers. Trust me…this one is easy peasy.
The peppers above are shepherd peppers – super sweet and a grilling favourite where the peppers below are red bell peppers. Nutritionally, they are the same but the shepherd peppers are easier to slice and grill.
You can definitely roast them (all of the directions for roasting and preserving peppers this way can be found on this post). But today we are going to simply wash, slice and bag our peppers so we can use them later. You can slice them as thick or thin as you like (I love thinly sliced peppers because I think they fry up the best this way).
All you need now are some freezer bags, a straw and (obviously) some space in your freezer – but not as much as you think because we’ll flatten them out before tucking them away.
Once, they are in the bags, flatten them out as much as you can (this way, you can break off portions without having to use the whole bag), close the ziploc top leaving just a small opening at the end. Insert your straw and suck out all of the air. The bag should be completely devoid of any air and totally flat. Now you can tuck them into the freezer to use at a later time (I find flattening them like this saves way more space than just leaving them bunched at the bottom of the bag).
Now, whenever you are craving a big pile of fried peppers, you’ll be ready (and if you haven’t had a pile of peppers in an Italian sandwich with a ton of prosciutto and some epic cheese, you truly haven’t lived)…
