Time to spice it up…

With more peppers…cause it is pepper season!

You don’t have to grow peppers to enjoy them.  This time of year you can go to your local farmers market and buy them by the pound at a great price!  So how to preserve them though?
There are several ways…freezing, food dehydrator, oven, and my favorite way…stringing them up.
I admit half of the reason why I love the stringing them up method has to be that it is the prettiest.

I can remember my mother having them hanging all over the kitchen.  I used to love the colors!
This year I had fun teaching the kids how to tie them up.
I opted to just knot them together this year..mainly because I couldn’t find a darn needle and fishing line around this joint!  But I had twine…so the twine won.

This is so stinking easy….
This go around I picked up about a pound of Cayenne, Jalapeño, Poblano, Serrano, and Thai Chiles.
I am saving Habanero’s for oven drying since I really don’t want to touch them much with my actual hands….lol!
Let’s start with the stringing them first…I will share the oven roasting when I do that next week

Start with a lovely basket full of spicy goodness….

add in some twine and scissors…

and a not so helpful baby…

Well you may want to leave that “baby” step out if you actually would like to complete this project with a little more speed
I start by making the knot I will use to hang it with…

Grab a pepper and simply start tying them on!

No worries if you have picked out a batch of peppers without stems….simply switch over to using a needle and thread.
Just add them together on the string.

You want to leave a bit of room between them so they can dry out well.

I hang them from a nail in my window sill…

On hot sunny days I will take them outside for some good old fashioned drying in the sunshine but I just love the color they bring to the kitchen…secretly I could care less if they stay there year round.

It will take a few weeks for them to dry out completely…
So what then?
Food processor of course.  I throw them in and chop them up…
Throw them in jars and use them all year in….everything.