Red or Green?
Green chile is the staple food of New Mexico for good reason; it has incredible versatility in the kitchen and thrives in harmony with our weather and soil-- our governor even proclaimed Native Chile Week during the third week of September-- local Badlands Burgers of Grants, NM won the first official Green Chile Cheeseburger competition in the state; I never liked the Owl Cafe's greasy little burger anyway. This year I planted Sandia, Joe Parker, Big Jim, and Espanola varieties of green chile. All bought as 8" 6-pack starts from the nursery, with the intention of drying most of it as red chile.
Late monsoons tease the green chile toward the frost
The Sandia's took off early and grew large, respectable bushes, but the best variety this year was the Joe Parker; bred at the world renowned Chile Pepper Institute at my alma mater. Drying them to red has been difficult and I'll post again in October with my results.
144 starts, 4 varieties, 2 50' rows of green chile
My plan for putting-away a year's worth of green chile was to buy a couple bushels of Hatch chile and have it roasted at one of our grocery store chains-- in college we bought green chile this way from the farms we had ridden past on training rides all that season. I brought the roasted chile home to sort and freeze in vacuum sealed zip-locs. Though it's debated throughout New Mexico, I prefer the method of removing the charred skins after thawing.
I packed three grades of chiles: perfect rellenos, mostly whole, and mostly shredded. A really cheap zip-loc vacuum pump packs it all in tight.
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