harvesting chillies

I crush and freeze my peppers. I use sandwich baggies and only put enough in to fill about a 1/4 inch depth. I freeze it flat and then when I use it, the thinness of the pack makes it easy to just break off a piece. I usually break off a piece about an inch or so square.

I will NOT test any of this stuff so when I give bread and other things to family, friends and neighbours, there is always my warning, "there is no quality assurance regarding the addition of peppers, it's your risk".

I use the hottest in my breads and then at Christmas I make super hot cranberry sauce and pepper jellies for use on savoury dishes. They are widely coveted even though I don't use any quality assurance for here either. I make bread/buns every week and I go though just over 10 kilos of flour a month. Yes, a month!

I have accidently gotten a taste of these dishes from time to time and have had to immediately follow it with a slice of bread generously buttered

I only started growing super hots on a challenge. Now I can't stop myself. Too much fun!

Oh, I just remembered. I have been goofing around with make spicy hot bacon with the super hots.

 

To many chillies. Put them in a freezer bag and pop into the freezer. They last 1 year +.

 

We are still using 2022 chillies!

 

Second harvest (please ignore the container of burgers!)

 

I hope you have plenty of milk in at Christmas if your visitors put your cranberry sauce on their Turkey dish.

 

I de-seed and de-pith our chillies then chop them and freeze them in ice cube trays. I save some seeds for sowing th enext year. The hottest bits are the pith and the seed so what I'm left with is flavour and reduced volcanic effect.

Really poor selection of chillies in shops here - bird's eye, espelette and a form of Scotch Bonnet - so I have to grow my own. Lemon Drop has been good again this year but the others failed to germinate or curled up as seedlings.

 

I taste the fruit when they are ripening and harvest when I like the hotness.

I pickle my small ones whole (Basket of fire etc), bigger ones sliced and usually there is a branch or two left for decorative purposes. Christmas presents:

 

Lovely @Selleri . I'm sure ours became the family Xmas22 card.