Packing Peppers

There are some crops that I grow that need daily upkeep in the peak season to make sure they don't get out of hand.  If the cucumbers or zucchini go too long between harvests they become too big to be tasty so I try to make sure that I pick them often.  Peppers are a nice crop for me because I can let them go for quite a while between harvests.  I often leave good sized peppers on a plant just so they have a chance to really ripen and change into their final color.  However, like any crop, peppers are more productive if you keep them picked, so I do go through and thin out the large ones every few days.  Today was a thinning day and I found an abundance of large peppers on my sweet bell peppers and sweet chili and banana peppers.

The peppers were nicely filled out and had nice thick flesh.  These were all perfect for preserving.  My favorite way to preserve my peppers is to freeze them.  Preparing them for freezing is as simple as cutting them in half and removing the seeds and then throwing them into a ziploc bag.  I don't even blanch my fresh peppers before freezing and they do great.  Once frozen they keep well and getting them ready for cooking is as simple as a rinse under hot water and chopping them into pieces.  I don't chop them before freezing because it can be so time consuming and I often like to make stuffed peppers so having a clean halved pepper ready to go makes things nice and simple for me.  This harvest of peppers filled two gallon ziplocs and they were tightly packed!  They went into the freezer for now and will happily be added to my meals over the coming months.