Pepper Preservation: a Podcast
A conversation on pepper preservation!
Our most-read Real Dirt post when it comes to this time of year? Four Ways to Preserve Peppers. Clearly, Missoula has a lot of pepper love, so we went back to the source.
In this episode, Genevieve Jessop Marsh, Outreach & Impact Director at Garden City Harvest, sits down with two friends from the Missoula County Department of Ecology & Extension. Alexandra (Alex) Brown is the Rocky Mountain Gardens Program Coordinator, a former Garden City Harvest educator, and the author of that original pepper post. Kelly Moore is the MSU Extension Family and Consumer Sciences Agent. Together they riff on the blog and answer the questions we hear most about preserving peppers.
You'll hear about:
Fermenting a bright, tangy pepper mash, and why to plan for fridge space first
Roasting and freezing peppers, including which ones roast best (it's all about the walls!)
Hot sauce with a surprise stone-fruit twist
Why acid matters, when you need a pressure canner, and where to find recipes you can trust
How to swap pepper varieties, and how to match the heat to the people at your table
Along the way, there are pickle surprises, a beet-canning "crime scene," a grievance or two about recipes that just say "one onion," and plenty of laughs.
Got a pile of peppers on the counter right now? This one's for you. Give it a listen, then grab the recipes from the original post and get preserving!
Please note: because it is pepper preserving time, we wanted to get this to you as fast as possible. That means we skipped the intro, and so this really is just the best nuggets of our conversation.
Resources Mentioned in the episode:
Tested recipes and food safety (the "know your sources" list Kelly and Alex kept coming back to)
National Center for Home Food Preservation: The research-based, USDA-backed source they both recommend most. It has processing times, headspace charts and tested recipes. Useful sections: Canning, Pickling and Freezing.
MSU Extension Food Preservation: Montana State University's food safety and preservation resources.
Oregon State University Extension, Preserving Peppers: Kelly mentioned OSU as a source she's used recently. This publication is specifically about peppers.
Your local experts
Missoula County Department of Ecology and Extension: Kelly and Alex's home base. Contact them for classes, questions and free pressure-canner gauge testing.
Rocky Mountain Gardens: The free public botanic and demonstration garden Alex coordinates programs for.
From Garden City Harvest
Four Ways to Preserve Peppers: Alex's original post, with recipes for the pepper mash, roasted chiles, hot sauce, marinated peppers and pepper-infused vinegar.
Garden City Harvest: Alex talks about CSAs, farm stands and fall flash sales as the place to find a pepper bounty. If you have a CSA or farm stand page, swap its URL in here.