Pepper predicament

The easiest and most productive backyard crops I've discovered for growing in greater Houston's searing summer heat are as follows:

• Okra
• Melons
• Sweet potatoes
• Certain herbs
• Peppers

I didn't curate my two (count 'em) pepper plants properly this summer and as a result, yields were reduced.  However, hatch peppers (Anaheims) grow so prolifically in this climate that even a half-tended plant will produce at least three dozen peppers.  Yes, you heard correctly:  three dozen per one plant. 

The question with these vegetables is as before: growing them is only half the battle.  What do you do with a bunch of them after harvesting?

Do we want to eat those all at once?  No.  BTW, I don't advise letting Anaheims remain on the plant long enough to turn red.  The skin gets too tough. 

My favorite thing to do is roast them on the BBQ and then...

Strip the skins (which will come off very easy after roasting) and most of the seeds (I got lazy here and left some in), chop, and freeze them in small batches for use in future omelettes and tofu dishes. 

My bell peppers were similarly neglected.

They were shaded by one okra plant and turned out healthy but small.  This is about half the yield from that one plant.  One of these summers, I'm going to get around to doing this pepper growing thing right, with more plants and better spacing. 

I chopped these guys and added them to a big batch of spaghetti sauce made for the freezer. 

BTW, that stunning cutting board which is reminiscent of Jupiter's weather patterns is a Larchwood creation.   

Here's a clearer picture of it - wow, the energy!!  Many different artisans produce some variant on the end-grain cutting board theme, but Larchwood Enterprises does it best, IMNSHO.  When we got this one several years ago, my husband did not want us to use it - he wanted to hang it on the wall as a piece of art.  I dragged it back to Houston on an airplane flight from far, far away, but I actually saw one of them for sale at Williams-Sonoma in Baybrook Mall earlier this year. 

I've also grown jalapeno peppers in previous years, and they grow in our summer climate without any attention whatsoever.  However, I haven't found an efficient way of "putting them up", as Texans say.  Do I cook them, freeze them, what??  I have to have some way of efficiently incorporating each micro-crop into our diet, preferably by freezing with or without incorporation into a prepared meal, or else it's not worth the trouble to grow them.   Maybe someday I'll figure that one out.  Until then, it's bell peppers and Anaheims.