The last of summer
All those little pepper plants grew up to produce a lot of peppers.
I have slowly working my way through them, getting them ready for the freezer. Peppers actually keep well several months in a cool room, and we have been eating quite a few, but I grew enough to freeze too. Working them up for the freezer on a snowy day brings back a little sunshine. 
I grew lots of bell and pimiento peppers, but I would have to say Numex Joe E. Parker Anaheim type has become our all around favorite though. Mildly hot, and if allowed to get ripe too, very sweet. Not as bland as a bell, but not too hot either.
These still have enough heat to irritate your skin if you’re doing very many, so it is a good idea to don the gloves. Cut the stem end. I feed these to my pepper loving dogs, but the chickens like them too.
Removing the ribs and seeds takes out most of the heat. The easiest way to do this is to slice the pepper in half lengthwise with the rib attachment perpendicular to your knife.
Take half the pepper and slide your knife between the rib and pepper flesh, cutting from end to end.
Cutting like this removes most of the rib and seeds with one cut. This really speeds things up when you have a lot of peppers to process. I freeze the perfect looking halves for rellenos, and blems or small peppers get diced.
My puppies love peppers. They steal them if they think they can get away with it.
They blink a lot and lick their lips if they’re too hot. And sometimes even refuse a bite of the spicier peppers. When they look away or bark at the hot ones, I know to make sure I get all the seeds out of those peppers.
Dicing is tedious too, and to make it easier, cut the pepper half in half again.
Stack pepper quarters and dice skin side down. Freeze on cookie sheets and pack in desired containers after frozen solid. I don’t bother roasting these before freezing anymore, we find we don’t mind the skins and just freezing this way is much simpler. I can just get out what I need for a meal. A little reminder of summer!
Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
Thanks for this post, Nita. I didn’t know you could freeze peppers ‘as is’ – somehow I thought you pretty much had to roast them. I’ve always done that and loved the results – this year I stared stupidly at my electric range and realized…. messed up in yet another way! I no longer know which I hate worse, electric ranges or the idea of more propane in the house! Next year I’ll try it your way…
Hayden, well I guess you can roast them, but they are one of the few things you can freeze without blanching too, which makes it nice. Roasting does impart a great flavor, but a quick saute too at cooking time is pretty good. We never know until we experiment or in my case get lazy
I need a dog heat tester! Love that. This year was a great year for peppers in Maine. I grew a new variety, Carmen from Johnnys, and they were amazingly prolific and delicious. It is often a challenge to get a crop to red ripe here, and these did. I have never grown Numex peppers, but may have to next year, as I do love them. I roasted quite a few and canned a red pepper spread, and preserved some roasted peppers in lemon, white wine and oil. Yum.
What variety of bells do you grow?
Ali, you do need one – they provide hours on entertainment!
I couldn’t get Carmen to produce well, one I like (but the mice ate all my seedlings) was Jolene from Wild Garden Seeds. It is a pretty tasty roasting pepper. Next year I guess. You can’t go wrong with Numex though, each of my plants had 25 – 30 huge peppers. I picked most green and they have continued to ripen in storage. I discovered they get an off taste if they experience cold on the plant, so I harvest when it starts getting cold at night and they don’t develop that taste. I initially thought leaving them on the plant to ripen was the way to go, but I learned that one the hard way.
I have always wanted to make the pepper spread, it sounds delicious! I still have another box to go and there are lots of red ones, I may just try it after your description.
I used to grow Vidi, but it has been dropped, no doubt a Seminis variety. But it produced so well and always got ripe here. Ripe peppers in any quantity here require a hoophouse, since our summer nights are cool, so I have to really fine tune my varieties. I planted Ace this year and it was very prolific and I had ripe, red bells in early August.
I used to can peppers and eat them on bread and butter, but now days my stomach can’t handle that kind of heat, but still put them in Chili and other dishes.
Lisa, sounds yummy! I find I am liking the heat less and less too these days.
You don’t even need to go thru the freezing on a cookie sheet routine. Even a gallon size bag of chopped peppers will let you take out just what you need with a quick thunk on the counter. I like to put on a good movie and can do up a washtub of peppers quickly…also with my Corgi hovering nearby!
Just want to say how much we love your blog and the glorious pictures…also all the information on cows/pastures as we are raising a pregnant Jersey heifer. Here in the Ozarks,sad to say, most people just throw the cows out in a big pasture and hope for the best. We’re talking dirt showing thru the scanty grass. Then they have an old muddy pond for their water source. DEE
Diana, good idea, I suppose they are like peas etc., not sticking to each other. It’s funny about the movie, I usually grab my Lady Gaga CD and the dogs know something is up in the kitchen, playing that CD has got me more privacy than a closed door
Thanks for the compliment about the blog/pictures. I guess I feel the need to get the info out because I used to be one of those turn the cows out, free range people myself. It’s much funner (is that even a word) this way
And always wear gloves…..always!
Great post, by the way!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Linda, yes gloves are nice, especially since I always have the tendency to scratch an itch as soon as I start the hot peppers!
Looks great and it will I’m sure be a blessed reminder of summer from you this winter
)
Our Aussie, Casino dislikes the smell of anything spicy or mentol smelling, he’ll snerl his lips up a the smell and sometimes even growl a bit, LOL!!!! Anything else though and he’s begging*wink* We caught him sneeking pole beans last summer and he LOVES raspberries and stawberries.
)
Blessings for your day,
Kelle
Kelle, I’m missing summer already – snow and freezing rain before the first of December is not to my liking!
These guys are terrible for helping themselves, I have had to cover the carrots to keep them from digging them up. Of course, they tell me that in the course of ridding the garden of voles they just happened upon the carrots…
Hope your weather is warming a bit!
Makes my nose twitch just looking at those pictures
Linda, yah, things got kinda hot in the kitchen!!
where do you buy your seed for the Numex pepper – I’m in Oregon too
GH, Johnny’s!! And you can save the seed too, they are open-pollinated.
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6927-numex-joe-e-parker.aspx