Last week has been a very busy one. After my monthly shopping came in which I bought a bunch of red peppers, it was time to make ajvar and pickled goods from the garden.

Ajvar from the oven

Ajvar takes lots of time to prepare. It usually takes me at least 3 days to finish making ajvar. I probably could do it quicker, but I like to give the baked peppers time to cool down completely before peeling them.

Like last year, this year I made oven-made ajvar. I think this is a far better way of doing ajvar in the kitchen than cooking it on top of the stove. Ajvar squirts a lot, messes up the entire kitchen, and can even mess up the ceiling and walls. Oven-made ajvar makes no mess at all. Except for the tray, which is quite difficult to wash, but still much easier than washing the entire kitchen.

Baking ajvar

I’ve baked my ajvar all at once. This time I bought 10 kilos of peppers, which is the amount I buy almost every year, but this time I made it in two trays at the same time. Ajvar shrinks a lot when cooked so, in the end, I ended up with 10 small jars of this delicious relish.

It will be used for sandwiches and baked meat. The made amount should be enough for the entire winter. Ajvar is quite strong, and one jar can’t be eaten during one meal.

What with pepper skins?

Peppers for ajvar are peeled. Usually, I used to throw the skins, but this time I wanted to try something new. So instead of throwing them, I tried drying them and using the skins as a spice.

I dried the skins for a couple of hours in the oven(50°C/122°F), and once they were dry, I used my coffee grinder to grind them. I couldn’t get a powder, but the flakes are small enough to use the skins as a spice.

Pepper skin spice

The spice has a wonderful smokey scent and although the taste is very mild the around of the baked peppers is very present. I’ll still decide if I will mix the powdered peppers with the skins of the peppers or I’+ll leave the asking alone in the bottle and mix them when I use them.

The skins will be used for marinating meat and in meals that contain a lot of peppers. There will be no need to bake the peppers before cooking, I’ll only add the skins, and the meal will have the needed smokey aroma.