Canning Peppers

[mjciccarel]

Does anyone know how to can peppers? We did some last year and of course can't find the book. Do you blanch them or do you have to cook them through? Thanks for any ideas.

MJ

[Mark Anderson]

A few years I read up on this and concluded that canning peppers wasn't for me. You either need to use vinegar to up the acidity or employ a pressure cooker and be damned sure you know what you're doing or you'll end up with botulism if you screw up and eat the rotten peppers. Botulism doesn't just give you diarrhea for a day and that's that, botulism can literally kill you.

I grow around 80 habenero plants per season and chose to buy a dehydrator and dry the harvest out and crush them. Just slice them in half, gut the middle, and place in dehydrator. Wait 12 hours and repeat. It worked out well and I'm still eating dried peppers from two years ago. After crushed you can put them in a salt shaker or a pepper grinder or whatever.

[Val]

I've canned (pickled) peppers for years, also made pepper jelly and pepper relish. I pack mine raw into the jars when pickling peppers, if this is what you mean when you say 'canning'. If you'll put 'canning peppers' into Google you'll get about 335,000 hits on sites that give you recipes and instructions.

[Dan L.]

Try the News Group: rec.food.preserving

Many here hangout there - cross poster :)

Enjoy Life ... Dan

[Billy]

I looked there, nothing. I had better luck at

[Frank]

My father used to cook them in olive oil and freeze. He liked to eat peppers and eggs. I guess they would be fine for other dishes. As others point out, unless you can with vinegar, you would need to pressure can to prevent botulism.

[mj]

Thanks everyone. We found the book last night and it does call for vinegar. We also have a pressure caner. That being said I think we are going to blanch and freeze. Right now I have a Laundry tub full of peppers waiting for me to recover from weeding. ;)

[ctlady]

Why not try freezing them? I freeze my peppers every year. Just wash, dry, remove the seeds, slice or chop (whatever your choice is) and place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Slip the sheet into the freezer for a couple of hours and then put them into freezer bags. This first step of freezing in a single layer prevents them from sticking all together into one mass of peppers and you can removed just the amount you want when you need them. They won't be crisp when thawed but perfect for any kind of cooking.

[Pat Kiewicz]

Peppers don't need to be blanched before freezing. Just do as "ctlady" said in her post: freeze cut up peppers in a single layer on a tray, then put them into freezer bags for long term storage.

[brooklyn1]

"Pat Kiewicz" wrote:

For long term storage it's best to dehydrate peppers. Frozen fresh peppers have a freezer shelf life of about 1 year. Home canned peppers have a shelf life of about 2 years. Dehydrated peppers have a shelf life of about 2 years but increases to about 10 years and longer when frozen. If one has a glut of say fresh bell peppers from their garden it's best to cook them in a recipe and then freeze the cooked dish, stuffed peppers freeze well... freezing fresh raw bell peppers ruins them for using fresh and for using in most all cooked recipes, even dumped into soup they'll disintergrate rapidly. Whenever I have a lot of bell peppers from my garden I eat as many as I can raw in salads and saute in recipes for immediate use and give the rest away. I really don't see the point in freezing or canning bell peppers. And hot peppers store best dried. Bell peppers contain so much moisture that it costs more in energy usage to dry them in a home dehydrater than to buy them commercially dried. Commercial dehydrating is done in a vacuum chamber, moisture is literally sucked out while very little heat is applied, this retains and even intensifies flavor. Home dehydrators actually waste food, it dries but with very little flavor retained, so essentially you'll be producing dust. Unless it's a food that can be sun dried (not many can be) don't bother, home dehydrators are a waste. Most hot peppers contain little moisture so are very easy to air dry.

[Billy]

In repost to the deranged idiot above,

[Bill who putters]

exclusively for fruit. Apples, peaches and a rare pineapple if the price is right. This all aimed at getting ready for Christmas. I married a Swede. Dark winter with a hint of summer goes well as a gift or stewed with ice cream. Never dried rhubarb but should be a given.

Bill whose electrical dehydrator works in about 48 hours. Sort of like slow and steady won the race. Once wrote about a Latvian friend whose dad smoked eel in a old ice box then dried it further in a discarded old clean car. Went well with vodka and laughter .

[Leon Fisk]

They don't stick together all that bad. I've never had any trouble separating them after freezing in zip lock bags. Could be maybe my hands are a bit stronger too :)

Wash them off, core/remove seeds and any bad spots, slice into strips maybe an inch or so wide. Shove into large (2 gallon work nice) freezer bag, freeze. Use for cooking, they will be mushy/limp when they thaw out. I've kept them in a chest freezer for a year or so without any troubles.

[brooklyn1]

RU Nutz... that fercocktah rube goldberg won't dehydrate fruit before they rot... your billygoat brain is dehydrated, like a freakin' lychee nut! LOL

[brooklyn1]

"Bill who putters" wrote

It's not possible to dehydrate pineapple at home for less than it costs to buy it already dehydrated... not unless you live where pineapple is grown, and then why bother.. the dehy pineapple one buys in market is dried in pineapple growing countries becaue it would be stupid to ship heavy pineapple when it costs much less to ship already dried. Actually it's not possible to dehydrate statside pineapple before it rots because to ship it needs to be harvested long before fully ripe, and because it doesn't contain enough sugar to keep from rotting in the drying process. There are no field ripened pineapple in stateside markets, and pineapple does not ripen further once picked. I think you're full of billygoat poopoo... you just made all that up... you never made a raisin. Anytime someone begins a claim with "We" then ya gotta know here comes a lie... WE usta, that's barroom boasting, that's likker tawkin'. Just like I caught you last time, you are a patent LIAR... you can't help yourself, you have a disease.

[Billy]

You have a cite for that, you prurient, anti-Christian windbag? Either the dehydrator, my brain, and/or the lychee nut? Lychees are commonly sold fresh in Vietnamese, Chinese and Asian markets, and in recent years, also widely in supermarkets worldwide.

'on, Sickness, whadda ya got?

[Billy]

Hey, Sickness, can I get a cite? I don't see where Bill said it was cheaper? I can probably buy anything that I grow in my garden cheaper at the market, so what's your point? That's presuming that you have a point, and aren't just having another one of your fits. Get help.

[Bill who putters]

It is not just a matter of cost if you can believe that. Ripe warm moist sugar dried slow is I'd guess much better than kiln dried. Add a bit of cinnamon or clove and it becomes fun/

We = Family practice.

Mr. Hyde

Bill

[Billy]

? Uh, Sickness, we don't talk like that around here. Your inspiration may be coming from your Depens. Maybe you should just just go home and play with your frozen banana.

[Bill who putters]

This guy with the sexual references takes me back to 5th grade.

Immature Moron with empty compassion . SAD.

Bill