Roasting Peppers

Roasting peppers

When blessed with a bounty of produce, one has to find a way to process everything that does not sell. Processing in an efficient and less time-consuming method is greatly appreciated when there is too much going on! We hunted down some recipes for roasting peppers in the oven, but many of them specified that when broiling peppers in the oven they should be split in half and the seeds removed. However, recipes specified that when roasting peppers on the grill the peppers can be left whole. So we decided to go with broiling the whole peppers, which worked out fine.

Blister forming on a pepper below the broiler

We placed the peppers stem down on a tray and put the tray below the broiler. After about 5-10 minutes we flipped the peppers over with tongs to roast on the other side for 5-10 minutes. The entertaining part that is perhaps missed when you split the peppers before roasting them is watching the skins blister and pop beneath the broiler.  Fun to hear and see! Some of the peppers were charred on all sides after this, so we placed them in a pan with a lid, then flipped the remaining peppers until all of the sides were charred. When the peppers were sufficiently charred we placed them all in the lidded pan for an hour or so until cooled, rubbed the skin off and removed the seeds. Having the hot, charred peppers in a lidded vessel seems pretty important because they retain a lot of moisture, and this helps with rubbing the skins off. Our modified method worked out really well and we made delicious pimento cheese with some of our freshly roasted peppers!  Some went in the freezer.  The plants are still producing so there will probably be more pimento cheese very soon.