Red Pepper Craze

I enjoy watching cooking shows. Not so much the ones that call for extremely weird ingredients, or the whole fish with head and all...But once in a while I will learn something useful.

Over the past several years my hubby has become quite familiar with these 6 little words: "We need to get a freezer" The side by side type doesn't leave much room for any extras. I have for several years thought of making meals ahead of time and freezing them to have ready on those days when I just don't feel like cooking, when our days are pretty filled up, or when I just don't want to make a mess of the barely cleaned up kitchen! Also when there's a good sale on an item, I could actually stock up! Well, either my husband got tired of hearing the same little phrase, I finally picked one out, or both. Might be silly but I was actually very excited to get an upright freezer! I've already put it to great use. I didn't go as overboard as "Lucy"(I didn't buy two sides of beef), but I was able to stock up on steak and chicken. I spent about an hour cooking a bunch of chicken, cutting it in cubes, and storing it in a freezer bag. Just doing that has saved me time and energy! My husband might now get used to me saying "you know why I was able to make this meal so quickly?"

For Father's Day, I wanted to make Olive Garden's Steak Gorgonzola (It is soooo yummy and fairly simple to make. I got the recipe online), but I hadn't gone grocery shopping last week, so I was relying on what I had on hand. It calls for sweet red bell peppers, I thought I had some for sure, since we have been using them a lot more after we discovered Olive Garden's Tuscan Garlic Chicken recipe (no, I do not work for Olive Garden, nor am I in competition with them) I previously posted about. The peppers keep great in the freezer. I only had yellow and plenty of the green, since I use them for my homemade spaghetti sauce. I used yellow peppers. My husband was a little skeptical, but sure enough he said "Triumph, my dear. Another triumph!", in a British accent. (I think it might be a line from the movie "A Christmas Carol"). Obviously he's joking- not about it being tasty though. But it brings a smile to my face when he says that!

Well sure enough the red peppers were on sale 2 for $1. Not bad. I can actually stock up now. So I did. I think I got half of what they had. I was tempted to get more, but I might have already gotten strange looks from fellow shoppers. We should have red peppers for a while anyway.

(Note: I had more peppers than in actual picture.)

So this is a tip I learned from watching many of those cooking shows. . .

How to cut a pepper, for slicing dicing, or even storing in the freezer! :

Cut off the top. The stem easily pulls out.

Cut off the bottom.

Slice open, and cut along the pepper, easily removing the seeds.

Now you have perfect little sections, ready to slice evenly, dice, or store just like that!

If you just read this, hope it was useful! If not, too bad, you probably already read it anyway!