Yesterday I was pickling different vegetables, but today I concentrated on pickling peppers. I baked and pickled red peppers (Kurt's Gate) and spiced bell peppers.
Red baked peppers with some fresh garlic and parsley are one of my top favourite foods. Especially in cold winter times when the colorful peppers give us a source of colors from the sunny days.
I had so many bell peppers left, that I made a stock of filling paprika for winter.

Pickled baked red peppers and pickled bell peppers

Ingredients:

• 2 liters of alcohol vinegar (titration at 9%)
• 6 liters of water
• 5 tablespoons of salt
• 4 teaspoons of sugar
• 5 kg of red peppers
• 0.5 dl of canola oil
• 10 kg of bell peppers
• spice mix: bay leaves, mustard seeds, black pepper, dill, coriander, fennel

Preparation:

1. Cut red peppers in halfs and take out the core and seeds. Wash them and dry them out with a kitchen towel.
   
2. Place them on a baking tray with baking paper underneath and sprinkle with oil. Put it in a preheated oven on 200°C for 20 minutes, or until they start to get brown.
   
3. Take them out of the baking tray, place them in a bowl and cover it with a kitchen cloth. Leave until it gets cooled down enough that we can safely touch it.
4. When baked peppers get cooled down, peel them with your hands. I dehydrated the pills and made a sweet red paprika powder out of it.
   
5. Cut bell peppers, get rid of the cores and the seeds and wash it.
   
6. Wash the jars and put them in the oven on 110°C for 10 minutes.
7. Mix water, vinegar, salt and sugar in a pot and bring it to boil.
8. Fill up the hot jars, some with baked red peppers and others with pieces of bell peppers.
   
   Pour hot vinegar mixture over them to fill up the jars. Get rid of the possible air bubbles mixing the jar with a butter knife. If you like you can add some spices in the jars. I added a spice mix to the bell peppers.
   
   I didn't put any spices in baked red peppers jars, as I will spice them up later when I want to use it with a lot of fresh garlic, parsley and drizzled with a bit of oil.
9. Close the jars with lids and water bath them for 25 minutes. You can also do that in the oven on 85°C.
10. Put them in a warm place and cover them with a blanket until they slowly cool down.
11. Store them in a dark and cold place.

Vegan filled paprika

Ingredients:

• 400 g of soya chunks
• 1 l of vegetable stock
• 200 g of buckwheat porridge
• 0.3 dl of vegetable stock
• 200 g of rice
• 4 onions
• 2 red peppers
• 2 green peppers
• 2 yellow peppers
• bay leaf
• parsley
• 1 teaspoon of sweet red paprika powder
• 1 zucchini
• 6 tablespoons of canola oil
• 250 g of button mushrooms
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 40 bell peppers

Preparation:

1. Put the vegetable stock in the pot and bring it to boil. Take it off the heat and put in soya chunks and leave it to soak.
2. The buckwheat porridge has to soak in the water for 2 hours before cooking. Cook buckwheat porridge in 0.3 dl of vegetable stock for 10 minutes and let it cool down.
   
3. Wash the rice well and drain it.
4. Peel and cut onions, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and garlic.
5. Drain and squeeze the liquid out of the soya chunks.
6. Heat up the oil in a big pot and fry onions, peppers, bay leaf, sweet red paprika powder and mushrooms. Add soya chunks, rice and zucchini and cook for 5 minutes. Add garlic and parsley and cook for another minute. Take it off the heat and mix it with buckwheat porridge. Leave it to cool down a little bit.
   
7. Clean bell peppers, cutting around the core and taking it out together with the seeds. Wash them and drain out the excess water.
8. Fill up bell peppers and cook them in tomato sauce or store them in a freezer for winter time.