Your future winter self needs you to freeze these peppers

In case your pepper stash is starting to back up, here is some advice about freezing sweet peppers for winter.  There are few midwinter pleasures better than tasting the sunshine stored in a pepper or a tomato that you froze in its summer prime.  Freezing peppers is easy.  Just make sure you do it the day you bring your produce home to maximize flavor, nutrients, and quality.  Wash the peppers well, gently dry with a paper towel, and place them on a clean cutting board.  Using a clean knife, slice them into the size you think you’d like to cook with (say 1/2″ thick slices for fajitas), discarding the seeds and stems.  Place them in a freezer-safe baggie or other container, arranging them loosely and lying the bag flat in the freezer (this keeps them from freezing together – for extra insurance against this, you can arrange the pepper slices on a cookie sheet and freeze them for an hour before transferring to their container, but I find that peppers aren’t too bad about sticking together if you just pack them loosely).  Put the date on the container and use them within 4-6 months.  Remember that frozen vegetables lose their crispiness, so you’ll want to use them in cooked dishes like stir fries and fajitas.  They don’t need to cook as long as fresh peppers – just a few minutes at the end of cooking time will do, or you’ll overcook them.