Lots of Hots

I got lots of hot peppers from my garden this year. I've mostly just been letting them grow and ripen on the plants and picking as I wanted some for salsa or something, but they were calling for a possible frost last night, so I went out and picked a bunch yesterday.   And now I have to figure out what I want to do with them.  I found a couple options at Gardeners.com:

To Freeze Peppers: Halve sweet peppers (green, red, yellow or purple), remove the core and seeds, and slice into julienne strips or small 1/4" chunks. Pack them into a freezer bag, squeeze out the air and throw them in the freezer. That's it! Frozen peppers are best used in a dish that gets sauteed, such as a stir-fry, or added to onions and potatoes for a tasty omelet.

To Pickle Peppers: Prepare peppers as above. Fill a clean pint or quart jar to within an inch of the top with the chopped peppers. Pour in white vinegar to cover all peppers. Cover with a plastic lid if possible, as the vinegar will gradually corrode metal lids. Store the jar in the back of your refrigerator for up to 12 months. The peppers will stay crunchy for a few months but will gradually soften. Spoon them out of the jar as you need them. The vinegar is flavorful, too. My favorite pickled peppers are a colorful mix of yellow, orange and red Hungarian hot wax peppers. They're great on sandwiches or mixed into pasta and bean salads.

and another option at My Daily Bread Body and Soul:
 

Hot Pepper Sauce 

Ingredients

• Hot peppers, any variety and amount* 
• White Vinegar 
• a few peppercorns (optional) 
• Garlic (optional) 

Directions 

1. Clean the jars you are going to be using in the dishwasher or boiling water. 
2. Bring vinegar to a boil. 
3. Wash peppers and either chop then to fit in your jar or put a little slit in them so that the vinegar penetrates them, which is what I did. 
4. Add peppers, garlic and peppercorns to a decorative bottle or jar. Pour boiling vinegar over peppers. Make sure peppers are completely covered with vinegar. Leave a little head-space, airspace in between the peppers and vinegar and the lid, and close the lid. Let it sit for a few weeks and enjoy. 

I always store them in the pantry, if it make you feel better, store in the fridge. *Amount of peppers used depends on how hot you want your sauce and what type peppers you have on hand and how big of a bottle you are going to use. Cayenne peppers are HOT and just after a couple days my sauce was hot and ready to be used.

And, of course, I could dry some of them. I did that once when I grew habaneros - just strung them with a needle and thread and hung them in the kitchen.  I had a lot of sweet peppers last summer, and I froze a bunch of those.  I chopped them into the 1/4" chunks, spread them on cookie sheets and froze them.  Once they were frozen, I put them into zipper bags.  That works really well and makes it easy to grab just the amount of peppers I need for a recipe - so some hot peppers like that will be nice to have.

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