Freezing Peppers

A few weeks back we pulled all of the peppers we could from our pepper plants and we froze them. There is nothing more delicious in about Mid January than Fajitas or Quesadillas made with garden frozen peppers. (Don't forget the margarita!)

If you don't garden you could do this in the summer when the peppers go on sale. I saw them as low as 50 cents this summer for red and green. Then here is what you have to do:

1. First you have to core and seed the peppers. You can do this in pretty much any fashion that works for you.

 * Don't forget to save the scraps for composting!

2. Cut your peppers into the size you will want to eat them. I usually do half diced and half in strips but this year I opted instead for a hybrid of those two and did them all together.

3. Fill a large pot with water and get it to a rolling boil. You will be blanching the peppers to prep them for freezing.

4. As the water starts to boil fill a large bowl (or two if you are blanching a lot of peppers) with ice and water. Once you are done blanching you will transfer the peppers to the ice bath to stop the cooking process.

5. Place the peppers (don't overcrowd the pot, if you need to do this in shifts than take the extra few minutes and do so) in the boiling water and set your timer for 3 minutes.

6. After three minutes you will drain the peppers and place them immediately in the ice bath for 3 additional minutes. If you need to work in shifts you can scoop your peppers with a small colander and keep the water boiling.  

7. While I am waiting for my 3 minutes to be up I spread a couple layers of paper towels on the counter. We don't use a lot of paper towels (try to use towels since they are reusable) so I don't feel bad about using them here.

8. After 3 minutes on ice spread the peppers on the paper towels.

9. Blot with paper towels and get them as dry as possible.

10. Now place them in portioned sizes in FREEZER BAGS (not just plain ziploc bags). 

Make sure to remove as much air from the bags as possible. And also feel free to write the date on the bag. You have about three months before they quality of the peppers degrades.

Lastly, enjoy your garden "fresh" peppers!