While we do focus a lot on growing and preserving our own food, that effort doesn’t have to exclusively involve our home grown food. Sometimes we do what we’d call “opportunistic” preservation from timely food that hits our grocers.
For example, earlier this season, we got a pretty decent shipment of hatch chiles into Fairbanks. Fresh hatch chile are definitely a rarity to see this far north, as we’re “slightly far” from Hatch Valley, New Mexico. So we seized the opportunity, bought some bags and decided to preserve them for longer term use.
In this case, our preparation was to roast and ultimately freeze them. This is a pretty classic preservation method, commonly practiced by southwestern and Mexican hatch chile fans. Hatch chile is an excellent, earthy and flavorful pepper that’s probably most similar to Anaheim peppers. They are excellent on burgers, dogs, soups, sauces, dips and countless other preparations.
Conceptually, we can do this kind of preservation with a lot of foods. Especially those that are exclusively seasonal, become a lot less expensive when they’re in season or like we did here, by seizing an opportunity that doesn’t come our way often. If you’re looking for ways to save money at the grocery, and who isn’t these days, there’s no unwritten rule that says food preservation is exclusively reserved for home grown foods!
We’re definitely excited to dig into these and get a little “NuMex” going on in our kitchen!
