This is the second year that Tygh has harvested and fire-roasted our poblanos. It’s a bit of a process. First you have to roast the peppers, then wait patiently (hopefully with a cold beer at your side) while they sit in a brown paper bag awhile so the skins soften enough to scrape. Then begins the fairly laborious process of removing the skins. You need an afternoon to do it when there aren’t a lot of other things pulling you in other directions. But oh boy, it’s worth it.
After skinning the peppers, we freeze them flat on cookie sheets. A few hours we later pull them out and put 4-5 in a freezer bag and place all the smaller bags inside a larger gallon size freezer bag. They keep really well. We use them mostly whenever a hankering for chowder sets in.
We used a lot of frozen peppers over the winter last year. We still have some anaheims and jalapenos left but we were down to our last small freezer bag of poblanos. So I’m glad Tygh found a sunny afternoon to get us set up for the fall and winter. We like that chowder!
I love spring and summer and never want the season to end. Sunshine, flip-flops, BBQ’s, veggies and flowers to take care of…it’s joyful to me. But once the season does start to change, I embrace it. I love making homemade soups during the fall and winter. With 24 butternut squash ripening, we will be making a lot of squash soup.
But one of the yummiest things to make during the fall and winter is Roasted Poblano Corn Chowder. For years as a (mostly) vegetarian, I looked for a good corn chowder recipe that didn’t use bacon. Not because I don’t like bacon. It’s actually my weakness. But Tygh won’t eat it if there’s bacon involved. My husband is principled! Unlike me who is a sucker for a salty, crispy piece of bacon.
So when I found this recipe last winter for roasted poblano corn chowder, I decided to make it because I knew we had those peppers just waiting to be put to good use. I’m so glad I did. The smoky flavor of the roasted peppers is amazing. I don’t miss the bacon. The soup doesn’t miss the bacon. It’s just sheer creamy, salty goodness in a bowl. Give it a try… https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/roasted_poblano_corn_chowder/#recipe14995