The votes are in and Laura has extended the Dark Days Eat Local Challenge; we can look forward to updates every fortnight! This is my entry for this week…
Fajitas!
This summer, when I realized that I wanted to see how far into the winter I could get with summer-captured veggies, I didn’t think about the peppers. Until August. Which, it turns out, was okay, because we don’t get many red peppers around here until then.
So, whenever I bought a couple at the farmer’s market for my use that week, I also bought a few to freeze. This is how I did a lot of my freezing – at the same time I was chopping and cooking something anyway. I prefer the red (or yellow, or orange) pepper to the green one, as I think it’s sweeter. Plus, it provides the go-to color element for a lot of things. I knew they wouldn’t be good in salads after freezing, but I hoped they’d stand up to stir frying and adding to cooked foods. They have!
I simply cut and cored them, then laid them out on cookie sheets in the freezer, then bagged ‘em. They are pretty much the easiest thing to put in the freezer, as they don’t require blanching. I did this with sweet peppers as well as poblanos and jalapenos. If you like the looks of this:
consider freezing those peppers next summer! Heck, let’s just all take a minute to think about next summer…
- Local ingredients: beef, peppers, onions
- Travelers: olive oil, cilantro, tortillas
I don’t know what kind of percentage I’m looking at for local on this one – how much of a percentage do you think those tortillas count for?
That’s way too easy! I slow roasted, pureed, put them into ice cube trays, took them out of ice cube trays, bagged and double bagged them. Next year I’m doing it your way. I still have serranos and habaneros on the plants though. California is crazy.
Wow – those look fabulous. I’m hoping to grow enough peppers this year that I can freeze some and dry some. I’ll use your technique for freezing!
I froze peppers for the first time this year, too, with great success (I did it the same way you did). I chopped mine up into little pieces, though. Seeing yours, I wish I’d left them long enough to look good in fajitas!
Thanks, ladies!
Even easier – the spicy little peppers (like jalapenos) I froze whole! I’ve used the jalapenos in some salsa, and they’re not bad, but generally I think they’re really best cooked.
Go for it!
Wow, how beautiful! I love the idea of freezing peppers. I tried with some corn (gotta remember to use that) and some of the fruit. Isn’t it nice to have something so colorful in the dead of winter.
Michelle
Why go to all that trouble?! I have had a garden for years and peppers are the easiest to freeze and “get back”! All you have to do is, cut them, as you like, take out the insides or core, whatever the terminology, and freeze in freezer bags per meal or “helping”. Here is the trick!! Take them out of the freezer when you are ready to use. DO NOT THAW!!! Now cook! If there is excess water—Sop it up with paper towels or let it boil out! They are just as good as garden picked!
Bob
Am still looking for a way to freeze tomatoes and then grabbing a package from the freezer in February and have them look, taste, and feel exactly like those taken from my garden! I don’t think it can be done!!!
Bob – that’s what I’m saying – it isn’t any trouble to freeze peppers – just core ‘em, cut ‘em , freeze ‘em. I’ve heard of some folks just throwing whole tomatoes in the freezer (think: croquet ball), but you’d definitely need to use them cooked, and it seems to me it’s easier to process them while you’re doing other stuff, then freeze.
We have lots of green peppers in our garden and I was wondering how they would do if we froze them. Thanks for the great ideas.