Monday, November 10, 2014

Dehydrating bell peppers

Younger Daughter loves bell peppers. She doesn't like the green ones; her favorites are the reds. Last spring we brought home a store-bought bell pepper, and rather on a lark I planted ten seeds.

I have something of a black thumb, so I was delighted when these seeds grew vigorously. I transplanted them into a tire in the garden, and they grew and produced peppers like crazy.



They start out green, and flush red when ripe.


Younger Daughter picked peppers through the fall as she wanted them. Unfortunately the frost caught up with them when a lot of peppers were either still green, or half green/half red (Younger Daughter tried a pepper when it was green and said it was bitter).


But I collected the rest of the ripe peppers and brought them into the house.


Because there were far too many for Younger Daughter to eat at once (she's the only one who likes bell peppers), I decided to dehydrate them.

I sliced them into strips...


...and then diced them. The result was a pretty mound of peppers.


Then I spread them on the trays of the dehydrator...


...and plugged it in.


I also pulled off a bunch of seeds for next year's planting.


After about twelve hours, this is what the peppers looked like. Lots of water was removed!


All those peppers, reduced down to one pint jar.


The flavor is very intense and concentrated, excellent for soups or stews. Younger Daughter likes to add bell peppers to her own personal stir fry, so she may rehydrate a few for that purpose.


Even though I'm not crazy about the taste of bell peppers, it's been fun to grow them.

12 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good way for them to go.I sweet pickled some chilli peppers this year and they taste great.
    I like the blog. Found it through pp's!

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  2. Patrice, someone told me once that green peppers are unripe peppers only and shouldn't be eaten. I have no idea if it's true, but if it is, your younger daughter may have instinctively known which was healthier. :-) I always use the red, orange, yellow ones now just in case.

    Really like the pics of the bell peppers being dehydrated. I get so many good ideas from your blog. I like to dehydrate food, too, it takes up so much less room when dried.

    Thanks for having a great blog.
    debk

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  3. Have you ever roasted them (the red ones) and then canned them? Tasty!

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  4. And, of course, they freeze well too. Frozen peppers work well for cooking, but not for salads and such.

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  5. Wow, I'd be dead (instead of in my 60's) if green peppers were bad for you. Green bells get a sweet pepper smell when they are ripe.

    Tell younger daughter that those red peppers are excellent in a quick omelette with dried onions, too!
    Jan in NWGA

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  6. I'm with younger daughter - I could eat 2-3 red bell peppers a day. I like the green ones but only if they've begun to turn red so they're sweet. I make stuffed peppers and freeze them for winter.
    Kay

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  7. Never had enough peppers to do this, but we usually do a few batches of tomatoes this way each summer, and then either rehydrate them, or use them as folks would use 'sundried' tomatoes in recipes...I love throwing them into pasta salad.

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  8. I'm with your younger daughter on this. My wife and I LOVE bell peppers, ALL colors! My wife makes a delicious salsa using one green, one red and one yellow pepper, along with a cut up onion and other spices and goodies, to put in her home-made burritos. It's out of this world. Best darn burritos I ever ate! --Fred in AZ

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  9. I'm a bit lazier. I simply slice them into strips to dehydrate (plus they don't fall through the grids on my Nesco trays), then when they're dry I break them into smaller pieces. So far, I've eaten them up to 2 years from dehydrating, still with good flavor.

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  10. We love bell peppers any way we can get them. Dehydrating doesn't happen much for us as we eat them too fast. We live in Nome Alaska and the typhoon didn't effect us too much. We had wind and snow on Sunday, but nothing fierce.

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  11. Yes, green peppers are unripe colored peppers. Yes, you may eat them green with no ill effects. Dry them, pickle them, roast them, can them, freeze them, salsa them, they're all lovely.

    Just like tomatoes, once they have gotten to the stage where they will begin to color up soon, you can pick them green and leave them on your counter and they will turn anyway. Window sills are not needed as tomatoes and peppers mature during the dark.

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  12. Next time bring in the green peppers, too. They will ripen if you put them in a big bowl. We do it every year with different types of peppers, but they all ripen & turn color.

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