Two Hot Ideas For Peppers

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by Mary A. Appelhof

It's pepper-picking time again already . . . which means that over the next four to eight weeks you may—at times—find yourself with more crisp, juicy green peppers on your hands than you know what to do with. Well, here are a couple of suggestions that should help you dispose of that bumper crop.

In case you didn't know it (I didn't, until recently), peppers can be frozen. No blanching is needed . . . all you have to do is [1] slice the upper fourth of each fruit off, [2] remove the peppers' ribs and seeds, [3] place the gutted peppers-along with their tops—inside heavy plastic bags, then [4] expel the air from the bags, seal 'em up tight, and pop them into the freezer. Six months later (when supermarket pepper prices have gone through the roof) you'll have a supply of good-tasting, inexpensive gardengrown peppers as close as your freezer!

OK. That's one way to deal with a surplus of green peppers. Another is to use them in the following recipe.

STOVE-TOP STUFFED PEPPERS

What's unique about this stuffed pepper recipe (which came to me—via a friend—from Yugoslavia) is that all the cooking is done over a burner. There's no baking involved . . . which means you can forget about using the oven—and heating up the entire house—on an already-scorching-hot summer afternoon.

8 green peppers
2/3 cup of uncooked rice
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
1 small onion, diced
garlic to taste (optional)
1 pound of lean ground beef
1 six-ounce can of tomato paste
3 cups of water
salt and pepper

Cut the tops off the peppers (set the tops aside), dispose of the peppers' ribs and seeds, and set the cleaned fruits upright in a fairly deep saucepan.