How to Prepare...Peppers

First off, a confession. Although we did just have peppers last week, the pictures used here are not them. The pictures here are from last summer when Gee Creek Farms had these wonderful Purple Peppers. The peppers we had last week were red and from a hot house farm in California. Despite being totally out of season, they were delicious.

 

Peppers are rarely served as a side dish,  they are usually used more like a garnish to enhance the rest of  the dish. That's really a shame because peppers can stand on it's own. Not much can beat a crisp fresh pepper. Next time your not feeling well, you should turn to peppers instead oranges. One cup of chopped peppers has over 200% of your RDA of vitamin C, and a good dose of vitamin B6 to help with the immune system. 

At ChildRoots we try to expose the kids to a variety of food experiences, not just mush. The best way to serve peppers as a side is raw and lightly salted. 

Start by washing the pepper and finding it's most stable base. If  it is bottom of the pepper, thats great. If it's one of the sides, lay it that way and cut off about 1/4 of the bottom. 

Using a sharp knife carefully slice down one of the sides. 

Turn the pepper and slice down another side, then lay it flat and slice the last two sides. 

 

Then if you hadn't already done so, slice off the bottom. 

The peppers are then chopped to the appropriate sizes. Remember to remove the fibrous rib first and chop peppers with the skin side down. And be very careful. 

Once the peppers are chopped, they are tossed with a little salt and refrigerated for a couple hours.  

The couple of hours in the fridge with the salt sweats the peppers, they will soften and release some liquid.  

It may seem weird at first to have peppers as a side, but give it a try.