Monday, November 5, 2012

Pantry Basics #2

Well, not exactly a 'pantry' basic, but more a freezer basic or a food prep basic. Not sure if I should separate these or re-name all these as 'Food Prep Basic'. Will need to give some thought on that:)
 
As I've written before, we didn't do a garden this year. With the VERY dry conditions and heat here, it just seemed a waste of time and energy. However my father-in-law loves to garden and he kept at it. We received lots of onions, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet potatoes and lots and lots of peppers from him this year.
 
 


We do love peppers and use them in lots of our cooking, but I just can't use as many as I'm getting before they go bad. So I decided to chop them up and freeze them.


This is pretty self explanatory. I cut the peppers up into strips, place them in a single layer on a cookie tray lined with aluminum foil (they are easier to pull off the aluminum foil if they freeze to it), let them freeze and once they are frozen, I store them in a plastic bag. The reason I cut them into strips instead of chopping them up is because my daughter doesn't like peppers so usually we put strips of peppers and onions in our food and that makes it easier for her to pull out the veggies:)

I have, in the past, just cut the top off and seeded the peppers and frozen them whole to be used in a stuffed pepper recipe, but none of these were big enough to be used for that.

I had enough to freeze two batches from this bunch of peppers. I would rather eat food from a local garden (that I know) than the stores, so this will help to get us into the winter a bit before I have to start buying peppers at the store again:)

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