Summer Pepper Salad with Bulgur

This first recipe is an adaptation of one from Ian Winslade, formerly of many Atlanta restaurants including Bluepointe, Shout and Spice market. He just opened Buckhead Bottle Bar in June and he demonstrated this pepper salad at the Morningside Farmers Market last week.

Winslade suggests using different colored peppers, but the salad will, of course, be just as delicious with the exclusively red peppers that were in my box today. I haven’t cut into them yet, so I don’t know if they’re all sweet peppers, or if some hot ones are lurking in the bunch. Be sure to taste your peppers as you’re using them in any recipe to be sure the final result is what you expect!

Oh – and a note. There was some conversation several weeks ago about sherry vinegar. Almost every chef I’m working with these days is using it, and I was reminded that I bought mine at the DeKalb Farmers Market – I think it’s less than $2 for the bottle.

1947 Tabasco Sauce Recipe

This week I discovered that a work colleague is a subscriber at one of Riverview’s other CSA pick-up locations. We chatted about the cayenne peppers in last week’s box, and agreed we’d like to have something to do with them beyond chopping them up and storing in the freezer for when you need a tablespoon or two of hot chiles for a recipe.

He and I talked about experimenting with Tabasco-type sauces. I found a great website, www.mexican-barbecue-recipes.com/tabasco-hot-sauce-recipes.html, with a bunch of ideas, and I liked this particular one, maybe because I’ve been working on a story that features recipes from the 1920s and 1940s.

Depending on how many peppers were in your box (that you haven’t already used), you may have to scale things up or down. I guess you could use any kind of vinegar you like, but white vinegar is probably what is meant here. I’ll be working on my sauce this weekend. Let us know if you decide to experiment, too.

Squash and Corn Tacos

Do you know how to roast peppers? I roast poblanos (and other large peppers) by just putting them on the gas burners on my cooktop. You want to brown the skins, so just leave them in the flames and turn them to get all sides blistered. Then drop the peppers into a paper bag, fold down the top and let the peppers steam. When they’re cool enough to handle, remove from the bag and remove the stem, seeds and skin. Easy! I do this periodically and store the roasted peppers in bags in the freezer to pull out as needed.

Arugula and Pepper Frittata

Having just made 16 different varieties of chili in the past four days, I used up every single pepper that’s come in our boxes for the last 3 weeks (yes, they will keep that long – and though they started out green, they turned yellow and red and even orange as they sat on the counter). I loved it – and given the price of these ripe colorful peppers, I felt that my box had more than paid for itself in peppers alone.

But maybe you haven’t been making chili, chili, chili and you’d need some inspiration for those peppers. I’ve talked about frittatas and baked egg dishes before. They’re just so great for using up a little of this and that, and you can eat them hot, warm, room temperature or cold. I just made one for the AJC that goes by the title of “Spanish Tortilla” – a Cubanelle pepper, potatoes, onions and ham sautéed, a few eggs whisked together and poured over, and the whole thing baked in its skillet for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Easy.

Here’s another frittata idea that will use your arugula and as many peppers as you want to include. It’s adapted from the blog, The Jew and The Carrot. It uses a slightly different method from my Spanish Tortilla since it’s prepared entirely on the cooktop.