Roasted Red Peppers

Despite the cool temperatures throughout most of August, we have red bell peppers!

The long ones are "Valencia" and the more square ones (near the top of the photo) are "Ace," a variety we chose specifically because it will ripen to from green to red in a shorter growing season (which is what we have here in Massachusetts). It's exciting that so many of our Valencia peppers have gone red as well! There are still plenty of green ones outside, so we should be in a good way with both red and green bell peppers from now until frost.

Last year we brought in a ton of peppers before the first frost, and they kept for several weeks on the counter — and even ripened to red while they sat. If we have that kind of luck again, we should have fresh peppers to eat through November.

Still, it would be really nice to have peppers in the winter, so we decided to roast these red ones so we could freeze them. Since we had burgers on the grill on Sunday, we thought fire-roasted peppers would be nice:

If you're thinking that these look awfully black, you're right. Getting veggies roasted over an open flame is tricky business, and leaving the job halfway done and then running off to play Munchkin with your kids is a recipe for burnt veg.

Still, the idea is that you do get the skin dark and blistery so you can peel it off. To help loosen it, when you take it off the heat, you put it in a bowl and cover it so it steams itself off. Then once the peppers have cooled (we waited over night), peel off the charred skins and compost them, and you have roasted peppers:

Not all of ours made it — two were burnt through. But most of them were ok, if a little charred, and we put them into a mason jar, filled it with some olive oil, and popped it in the fridge. Now I won't have to cheat on the No Buying Veggies Challenge over the winter!