This is a simple recipe that is a staple of my fathers, hence the name “Joe’s Peppers”. I say staple because you can almost always open my parents refrigerator and find a jar of these peppers at the ready. They make an excellent sandwich condiment, the perfect topping to cheese, a sharp addition to a crusty baguette, something zippy to toss into a pasta right before serving, a way to wake up scrambled eggs… I could go on.

The beauty of this recipe is it’s simplicity, versatility and it’s shelf life. The peppers are confit-style; slow cooked in lots of olive oil, and once contained and refrigerated are somewhat preserved and will last up to a month or more though my guess is they will be eaten before that time. The preferred pepper you want to look for is the Italian long hot. Each time I make these the batch varies in heat. A replacement for long hots is Anaheim peppers. They can also be substituted by cubanelle peppers or the pepperoncini to achieve similar levels of spiciness and tanginess.

RECIPE

5-6 long hot peppers

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 teaspoon of dried oregano

1.5 teaspoons of dried onion powder

large pinch of salt

freshly cracked pepper to taste

1/4 cup of olive oil
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• add oil to a frying pan over low to medium heat

• slice the peppers in rings and add to the pan including the seeds but with tops/stems removed

• chop garlic and add to peppers along with oregano, onion powder, pepper & salt

• stir occasionally and press the peppers into the oil with the back of a spatula cooking until the peppers start to darken and wilt in the oil

• let cool off heat and transfer to an air tight container or ball jar

• enjoy on everything