Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Peppers

SIX Methods for Preparing your Peppers:

• As a garnish or topping to pizza (raw or grilled)

• Try stuffed with quinoa, other grains, veggies and cheese or rice and ground beef (baked)

• In salsas, dips or raw with a dip. Have you tried roasted red pepper hummus? (raw or grilled)

• Sauces such as Harissa (Spicy Red Pepper Sauce) or in your spaghetti sauce (roasted then added to sauce)

• Added to main dishes chopped up green peppers in chili, meatloaf, in your sloppy joes, on your Philly steak sandwich, in stir fry, on kabobs (roasted, grilled or sautéed)

• In side dishes sautéed in olive oil with a bit of garlic and oregano or other spices to match your meal style, grilled with other veggies, stuffed pepper soup (sautéed, grilled, roasted)

Think Green Peppers are too Bitter? Try this:

Slice very thin and sauté in olive oil with other peppers and onions. Add a bit of brown sugar to help caramelize them and be amazed by the difference in taste.

What is the difference between a Green, Yellow, Orange and Red Pepper?

Green Bell Peppers are harvested before they are fully ripe. This is one of the reasons they tend to be less expensive and more readily available. If left on the vine, a green pepper will continue to ripen and turn yellow and orange before finally turning red. The slightly bitter flavor of the green peppers is a result of it being harvested before fully ripening. These peppers will never have the sweet taste of red, yellow or orange peppers as that sweetness develops the longer it is allowed to ripen.

Freezing is Easy!

While the texture changes after freezing, there are plenty of ways to use these peppers in winter dishes — straight from the freezer! Simply pop frozen peppers directly into your pot of soup, add to a casserole going in the oven or stir into a pot of spaghetti sauce or chili. (When using frozen they will produce extra water in your dish, so you may need to adjust the amount of liquid in your recipe).

How to freeze: Chop or slice then spread in single layer on a cookie sheet and flash freeze for about 1 hour. (This keeps the pieces separated so you don’t end up with a large frozen block of pepper.) Once flash frozen, package in freezer safe containers, return to freezer and enjoy a rainbow of color all winter long!