Cherry Bomb Chillis too fat to dry?

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

I normally string and hang my Chillis in the kitchen as I normally grow slim small varieties that seem to dry well without any intervention (prairie fire/numex/lemon drop/thai birdseye).

This year in addition, I grew Cherry Bomb and Cherry Small. They are quite large, round and fleshy. I have rather a lot of them across 4 or 5 plants and was not sure if they will dry ok manually.

I don't want to risk them rotting or poisoning us.

Does anyone else dry theirs? What are my alternatives? Chilli jam?

Thanks

[Moopmoop]

I've never had any problems drying chillies, either thick or thin. If it was me I think I would have a bash at a few methods and at least one of them will be good. Try pickling a jar or two, dry some as usual, freeze, try oven drying a few handfuls. Depending on what you will be using them for afterwards determines how I store them, I don't mind frozen chilli on pizza, in sauces and toasties etc.

Well done for having a decent harvest too.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

Thank you.

Freezer space is at a premium, so I may only get a few tucked away without getting into trouble. I'v never tried pickling them before. Must give that a go, I guess they'll work well with cheese and could still be used in cooking. I'll make some jam too, though unless I make loads it ain't gonna use that many.

[darcyvuqua]

cherry bomb are ideal for pickling that's the only method I would use for them awesome hand in hand with a cheese board

[Moopmoop]

Depending on how adventurous you are there are loads of ways to use them. If freezer space is a premium maybe you'd be allowed more of it for end products of the chiilies. I love the idea of making my own sausages but I've never done it yet, I did however buy some pork and jalapeno sausages from a chilli festival and they were beautiful, I also bought pork baked bean and chilli, they were nice too. Burgers are lovely with chilli and red onion, chilli vodka and chilli chocolate for xmas presents. Piccalilli to use some fresh, homemade tomato ketchup with a kick, can you tell I love chilli?

I don't know if you've ever seen Forest Gump but I feel like Bubba when they ask him what you can make out of shrimp. He reels off endless lists of shrimp gumbo, shrimp soup, shrimp stew.........

[Rocketron]

How to Dry Cherry Bomb Peppers | eHow

I was going to suggest splitting them lengthwise and then I saw this.

[Scarlet]

I've grown manzano chilli a few times, I couldn't dry those - they went mouldy in the middle. I chop and freeze the surplus. They take up little space.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

I am certainly going to pickle some. Got plenty of jars and most of the required ingredients in stock. Will try a few methods and perhaps even oven dry if I have that many over.

THank you

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

Would you mix green and red in the same jar? Got a lot ripe now, but also a lot more not ripe. Don't want them to rot on the plant!

[Moopmoop]

I don't see why not to mix them but if you have enough chillies then maybe make a jar of each red and green. I've just picked my first two red chillies as I was very late with starting them this year. I'm going to attempt to over winter the plants, a demon red and a fresno supreme. The fresno chillies aren't meant to dry that well either and to be honest I think they are supposed to be better when they are fresh and still green. They'd be good pickled too me thinks.

I wouldn't attempt to use your usual method to dry too many of your chillies as it would be a shame to waste them, maybe just a few, a few oven dried, poss make a few sausages etc as a trial and pickle the rest.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

My Prairie Fire/Numex I tend to pick as they ripen and I eventually get round to using a needle and thread to string them up.

These Cherry Bombs are quite big n fat, we had roasted 'plot med veg' last night (red onion/courgette/aubergine/cherry tomatoes/peppers), OH decided to use one Cherry Bomb (seeds n all) to give it some bite. Crikey, I felt like I have physical burns after a few mouthfuls. Though, I persevered and cleared my plate.

Got to get and pick some soon as we've had night time lows of 4 deg.