Peppers!

When we first moved here we were shocked by how much more food cost than we were used to. So we had to cut out or watch for sales on some "luxury" items. We frequently buy dough from American Dream and make up a bunch of pizzas to eat and freeze for later. One of our favorite toppings is roasted red peppers. The trouble is, these can be very expensive, so I looked up if it were possible to can these. I found a recipe and triple checked it to make sure it really was okay to can with olive oil - this recipe was approved by some college's extension program (it was a few months ago, I can't remember which one, but it was legit). I'd make a quarter or a half batch, to avoid waste. You don't need much because the peppers pack in the jars really well.
So when I bought seeds in the spring I looked for a red, thick walled pepper with a short growing period. At 61 days Fat N' Sassy was the one. It's now called King Arthur for some reason. This pepper has been fantastic, a 100% germination rate, and each plant has anywhere from 4 to 10 beautiful peppers. When I've grown bells in the past, they are thin and kind of bitter. These are comparable to grocery store peppers. If it had been a normal hot summer, I think we would have had a lot more redness to them. Luckily they are good red and green. I also grew a variety called Mandarin, that is a beautiful orange pepper.


I roasted them under the broiler until they turned black. The blacker they get, the easier the skin comes off - trust me you want this.


Taking the skin off is a bit tedious.


I got in over my head this time - I shouldn't have done this many at one time :/
I did a canner load - mostly 1/2 pints because that is the right size for us. I still had 3/4 of a quart of peppers left and just put the marinade over them and put them in the fridge. We'll either eat them this week, or put them in the freezer. I would have done another canner load but I have used so many jars this year! I don't want to buy more, and they are becoming increasingly difficult to find now that the season is "over".


Here are some from an earlier batch:



We tried some on pizza a few weeks ago - I wanted to make sure they were worth the trouble. They are, they were good!
I'm getting ready to do a wrap up canning post, I canned way more than I thought this year!