Freezing green and other bell peppers

When the bell peppers come in to season here in New England, as they are doing right now, I'm known for picking up 2 – 4 peppers per week at the farmer's market, seeding and slicing them prior to putting them in the freezer. I've found that green and other bell peppers,--red, yellow, etc.,--freeze well and cook up nicely in a stir fry, a dish of sausage, peppers and onions, black bean sloppy joe, mushroom, peppers and onions, fajitas.

As I begin to re-stock my freezer with bell peppers, I thought I would share with you the steps I follow for freezing and using peppers I get at the farmer's market:

To freeze bell peppers, you’ll need:

Sandwich size ziploc storage bags,--one bag per pepper

Gallon size freezer safe ziploc storage bags,--one bag for every 4 peppers

Knife

Cutting board

Wash and dry peppers.

Slice and de-seed peppers, placing slices in ziploc sandwich bag. One bag should contain the slices from one pepper. Repeat as many times as needed.

When all peppers have been sliced and bagged, seal sandwich bags. Put sandwich bags into freezer safe gallon size ziploc bag. You should be able to fit 5 – 7 bags of peppers into one gallon size bag. Seal freezer safe gallon size bag and put in freezer.

The peppers will keep for about 6 – 12 months and can be used in stir fries, fajitias or any recipe which calls for cooked or sauteed peppers such as black bean sloppy joe. Keep in mind, the longer the peppers are in the freezer they more likely they are to lose flavor.

When ready to use, remove the number of peppers/bags from the freezer. Let thaw on the kitchen countertop for 1 – 3 minutes. Break peppers loose by pressing heel of hand on peppers while in bag on countertop. Open bag and add peppers to recipe.

Two versions of Cucumber Salad

Pickling cucumbers were in abundance on the last visit to my local farmer's market. As I decided how many to buy, I thought about the cucumber salad recipe I tried in 2011 as one of my twelve new recipes as I knew these cucumbers would work well in this recipe.

I found this recipe in my revised 13^th edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook and is a great summer recipe as its taste is very cooling to the palette. Per the cookbook, this is a sharp cucumber salad, maybe too much for some tastes—if so add a little sugar. I used pickling cucumbers which I did not peel as I like cucumber skin, I substituted onion powder where I did not have scallions, I skipped the vinegar, I reduced the amount of dill and used the directions as a guideline. These changes most likely softened the flavor.

This recipe will serve six if using 3 medium cucumbers,--2-4 if using 3 small pickling cucumbers. The cookbook's version as well as mine are listed here.

Cucumber Salad - From the revised 13^th edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook (serves six)

3 medium cucumbers

Salt

4 tablespoons sour cream or mayonnaise

3 tablespoons minced scallions

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons vinegar

½ teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 tablespoon minced dill or parsley

Peel the cucumbers and slice thin. Spread them over the bottom of a colander and sprinkle salt on top. Let them drain for 30 minutes, press gently to remove excess liquid, then chill. Blend the sour cream or mayonnaise, scallions, lemon juice, vinegar, and dry mustard together. Add salt to taste. Toss the dressing with the cucumbers. Sprinkle the dill or parsley on top and serve cold.

Cucumber Salad – Julie's version based on recipe from the revised 13^th edition of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook (serves two - four)

3 small pickling cucumbers

2 - 4 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tsp onion powder

1 teaspoon lemon juice

½ teaspoon dry mustard powder

1 teaspoon dried dill

Wash, dry and dice the cucumbers.

In a medium bowl, blend 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, onion powder, lemon juice, dry mustard and dill together. Add cucumbers and toss until cucumbers are coated with dressing. If needed, add mayonnaise, ½ tablespoon at a time, until cucumbers are coated. Serve.

Zucchini Fritter

On a recent trip to my local farmer's market, I was eyeing the zucchini. It looked wonderful, beautifully green and fresh. Just perfect for zucchini fritters. As I mentally read through the recipe, the sales person asked if I was ready to pay. I said no and explained that I was debating whether or not to buy some zucchini for fritters. A conversation about this recipe ensued.

This recipe came to me via my girlfriend, Sally, who is always a great source of culinary innovation and feedback. In this recipe a fritter is a small mass of fried or sauteed batter not a small piece of food coated in a mixture or flour and egg and fried, which is the more accepted definition of a fritter.

These fritters can be refrigerated and re-heated in either a microwave or oven.

The goal with pressing the zucchini is to squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Depending upon my mood and the amount zucchini, I do this multiple ways,--squeezing shredded handfuls in my fist over the kitchen sink and then pacing the pressed lumps on two paper towels, putting the shredded zucchini in a colander in the kitchen since and pressing down with my hands. In short, there are multiple ways to do this and no right or wrong way. Removing as much moisture as possible from the zucchini is key to a successful fritter.

Shredded and pressed zucchini can be stored overnight in an airtight container in the back of the refrigerator prior to use.  Zucchini shredded and pressed should be used within 24 hours for best results. 

Zucchini Fritters

2 cups shredded zucchini, pressed

2 eggs

½ cup flour or cornmeal

2 cloves garlic, pressed or 2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tablespoons milk,--dairy, soy or rice

1-2 tablespoons canola oil

salt and pepper to taste (optional)

1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped (optional)

½ grated parmesean cheese (optional)

In large bowl, beat eggs with milk. Add zucchini, flour or cornmeal, garlic, onion, salt, pepper, basil and cheese. Mix until well blended.

Coat a medium to large skillet with canola oil. Heat oil to medium/medium-hot. Spoon batter to slightly larger than silver-dollar pancake size into hot skillet. Cook 2-7 minutes on one side, then flip, cooking 2-7 minutes or more to complete cooking/browning. Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels. Serve warm, refrigerating any unused portion.

Black Bean Sloppy Joe

Several years ago, I was advised to incorporate more black beans into my diet to help with some health issues I was having. In looking for ways to accomplish this, I ended up making the following Black Bean Sloppy Joe recipe which is a variation of the Sloppy Veg-Head Joe recipe from Rachel Ray's BigOrange Book Cookbook.

This is a versatile recipe. It's dairy-free, egg-free, gluten free and vegan. Dice the onion and peppers and served chilled with tortilla chips as variety of black bean dip for a summer appetizer. As an entree, top with cheese, serve warm with avocado. Corn or rice to make a hearty meal.

1 tablespoon canola or olive oil

¾ teaspoon minced garlic or 2 large garlic cloves, chopped

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

1 small to medium onion, chopped

2 cups or 1 19 – 21 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon black pepper or more to taste 

salt

1 ½ cups tomatoes, chopped, or 1 – 15 ounce can diced tomatoes

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Heat the oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic, onion and pepper, stir once to coat with oil, cover and cook for 8 minutes. Fold in the black beans, cumin, coriander, black pepper. Add salt or more pepper to taste. Stir in tomatoes and vinegar. Lower heat to simmer and let simmer for five minutes. 

Black Bean Sloppy Joe 

Ready to Serve

Melting Chocolate in the Microwave

I recently made Duncan Hines' Red andWhite Velvet Cookies as one my twelve new recipes to try for 2014.

While the recipe calls for a combination of white chocolate premium baking bars (in pieces) and vegetable shortening, melted for dipping half of the cookie into, I chose to take a different path. I chose to melt white chocolate chips in the microwave.

Melting chocolate in the microwave can be a bit tricky as I have learned from doing this time and time again. Heat the chocolate too high too quickly and it will seize. Don't heat the chocolate high enough and you may not be able to finish dipping or drizzling before the chocolate solidifies.

To melt chocolate in a microwave, start with a clean and dry glass bowl. Make certain the pieces of chocolate to be melted are of a small, uniform size, especially if you're not melting baking chips.

Microwave chocolate at 50% power (or medium power) for half of the time instructed by the recipe. Where all microwaves run differently, it's better to melt too little versus too much. Remove bowl from microwave and examine the chocolate. If approximately half of the chocolate looks glossy, stir with a dry spoon or spatula to finish the melting process. If less than half of the chocolate doesn't look glossy, return to microwave and microwave at 50% power (or medium power) for quarter of the time instructed by the recipe.

Once chocolate has completely melted, dip or drizzle as instructed by recipe.

If you need to melt chocolate multiple times for a recipe, such as with my Ginger Nut Clusters recipe, each subsequent melting will take less time as the bowl being used to melt and the melted chocolate already in the bowl will facilitate the melting of subsequent amounts of chocolate.

Oh, and the Red and White Velvet Cookies were a hit even though I changed step 2 in recipe. Instead of forming the dough into a log and refrigerating, I rolled 1” pieces of the dough into a ball, placed them on a non-stick cookie sheet and flattened the ball with the bottom of a drinking glass. The recipe is a keeper.

Freezing apples for pies and crisps

Those who know me know my penchant for locally grown fruits and vegetables, including apples. Several years ago by accident, I found a combination of local grown Melrouge and Cortland apples makes a nice base for the apple pie filling I make for my apple pie recipe. Firm and soft with all the flavor local grown apples provide, I wanted nothing more than to be able to freeze these apples for making apple pie during January and February when a pie made from these apples would be a great winter treat.

I needed to look no further than my copy of “Brooksby Apple Bake Cook Book” by the Peabody Historical Society which I purchased over a decade ago. Chock full of apple related muffins, breads, cakes, cookies, desserts, sauces, marmalades, page 21 contained the following on freezing apples for pie:

“Freezing Apples for Pie: Peel, halve, core, and slice apples quickly. Put in freezer bag and put in freezer as quickly as possible. Do only enough apples for one pie at a time; in this way the apples do not have time to discolor. When you are ready to use the apples for pie, you do not need to thaw them. Put them wile still frozen in your pastry shell, add sugar, spices, flour and bits of butter, top with top crust, flute edges and bake as you would a fresh apple pie.”

I started with enough apples for one pie,--two Melrouge and four Cortland apples. I peeled, halved, cored and sliced the apples shortly after buying them. I placed them immediately in a ziploc freezer bag and placed in freezer. Several months later, I made my pie crust for apple pie, lined a pie plate with half the crust, mixed the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour. I then retrieved the apples from the freezer and immediately hit a stumbling block.

The apples were frozen solid into a rectangular shape. The pie crust lined a circular pie plate. I did manage to get the rectangular block of apples into the circular pie plate along with the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour and butter as well as get the top crust over this misshapen middle. The end result was a pie which tasted great but where the apples closest to the edge of the crust had no season.

Rectangular block of apples

waiting to be made into apple pie

Determined to improve upon this, I developed the following guidelines for freezing apples for pies and crisps:

• Pre-measure the apples. In other words, make sure your freezing enough for one pie, crisp, etc.
• Freeze apples which work well with the recipe you are freezing them for. For example, I freeze a combination of Melrouge and Cortland apples for apple pie.
• Plan to use the apples within six months.
• Use Ziploc freezer bags especially if you don't plan to pre-freeze the apples. This will make a partial thaw (see last bullet point below) when using apples easier.
• You can pre-freeze apples individually on a plate or baking sheet lined with parchment paper to keep them from clumping or forming a solid mass during the freezing process. If you're like me, you don't have any room your freezer for this pre-freeze step.
• When using apples for pie or crisp which were not pre-frozen and are a solid block, make your first step in the recipe filling a large bowl with medium-hot water and placing the apples in the water. As you go forward with your recipe, the apples will begin to thaw. Thaw apples enough to where the solid block can be easily broken by hand into chunks small enough to be used in your recipe. Apples should be cold to the touch, they do not need to be completely thawed.

Melrouge and Cortland apples, previously frozen,

baked into an apple pie.

Oven Roasted Eggplant

Over the years, my palate has become accustomed to local grown eggplant. When it appears at my local farmer's markets, I will buy, buy and buy more as I have found cooked eggplant freezes well and works nicely in a pizza, a pasta or bean dish or as the eggplant portion of my Eggplant, Meat and Tomato with Spices recipe.

By the time October rolls around, my freezer is stocked with bags of frozen oven roasted eggplant. During the cold days of winter and damp days of spring, the supply slowly dwindles. With only one bag remaining in my freezer at this time, I am reminded that at some point summer will return with its long days and bounty of local eggplant which I will buy roast and freeze for the upcoming winter. 

Oven Roasted Eggplant 
ready to be put in freezer for winter

Oven Roasted Eggplant

6 – 8 cups globe eggplant washed and diced

1 cup olive oil or canola oil

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp garlic powder

1. Place oven rack on middle rung. Preheat oven to broiler setting.

2. In a large bowl, combine eggplant, olive oil, onion powder and garlic powder.

3. Line a large cookie sheet with aluminum foil, tucking in ends.

4. Place eggplant on cookie sheet, close together but no higher than one layer deep. 

Eggplant ready to be put

in oven for roasting

5. Place eggplant in oven on middle rack. Cook for 7 – 13 minutes or until largest pieces are easily split with fork. Serve or cool and store in airtight container in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as needed.

If freezing, place cooled eggplant in freezer-safe bags or containers. I use quart size freezer-safe ziploc bags. When ready to use, remove from freezer and thaw on plate on kitchen counter top or in refrigerator for slower thaw. For quicker thaw, immerse three-quarters of eggplant in warm water. Once thawed, add to pizza as you would any other topping, heat to warm or hot if adding to pasta or bean dish. Use as bottom layer in my Eggplant, Meat and Tomato with Spices recipe.