"Pat Kiewicz" wrote:
mj said:

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.

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.



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.