Stoney Acres

This week we are joining The Gardener of Eden for the Thursday Kitchen Cupboard.  Be sure to drop by to see what other gardeners are doing in the kitchen this week!

We love green bell peppers!  Almost any meal tastes better with a few green peppers in it.  We use them in soups, salads, casseroles and stir fries.  Every year we try to get 3 or 4 gallon sized bags of them in the freezer.  And every year we always want more!

Over the years we have tried several different varieties of bell pepper.  We have finally landed on one that seems to do well in our garden.  It’s call Yolo Wonder and is an heirloom variety.  They produce really well in our climate and are easy to start early from seed.

This year we decided to ramp up our production of bell peppers.  We planted 12 starts in mid May and now they are producing like crazy.  For the last couple of weeks we have been getting 3 to 5 pounds each week.

Preserving bell peppers couldn’t be easier.  Bell peppers are one of those veggies that handle the freezer really well.  Simply wash them very well and them cut them in half and remove all the core and seeds.  The seeds usually come out by simply washing them off in the sink.

Cut them to your desired size (we like to cut them up into small chunks).  And then spread them out flat on a cookie sheet.  Be sure to grease or spray the sheet first to make them easy to remove once they are frozen.   Place the cookie sheet in the freezer over night.  We always “pre-freeze” them like this, it allows each piece of pepper to freeze individually and makes them so much easier to deal with later.  That way you can just remove what you need and you don’t have this big frozen hunk.

Once they are frozen you can simply put them in a plastic freezer bag that you can open and reseal any time.  We have found that green peppers frozen this way will last at least a year, although it’s not often they make it that long around here!!

Always remember when you are preserving foods to check the most recent preserving instructions.  You can get them from the USDA, your local county extension agency or from a recently published book.  We love the Ball Blue Book and use it all the time.  If you are interested in getting an updated copy you can buy them on Amazon.com.  I’ve added the Ball Blue Book to my recommend book list you can click there and it will take you right to Amazon where you can order your copy.