Red bell peppers
A red pepper is a green pepper left on the plant long enough to ripen, and by the end of the season that's most of what's left. Early fall is when California's red peppers are sweetest and often cheapest. By November they'll be shipped from farther away and priced like it.
How to choose it
- Glossy, firm, and heavy for their size
- Deep, even red, with no green shoulders
- Thick walls — press gently; they shouldn't flex
- A green, fresh-looking stem
- Blocky, four-lobed peppers char more evenly than twisted ones
Buy this much: 4 for the jar, every week. Add 2 for the sausage pan and 1 for the pork if you pick them.
Loose peppers by the pound are almost always cheaper than the packaged bags.
During the week
- Charred and cooked down into the ajvar
- Roasted on one pan with sausages and kabocha
- Roasted with sweet potatoes beside the pork
- Sliced raw, with salt, while dinner cooks
On a weekend
Charred on Saturday, cooked down into a jar of ajvar that carries the week.
One thing worth learning
Green, yellow, and red bell peppers are mostly the same plant at different stages. Red ones have spent the longest ripening, which is why they're sweetest and cost more most of the year. The end of the season is when that extra time is cheap.