If this is recipe from the Ball cookbook, I made it last year. Did you use roma tomatoes? Maybe it will thicken when it cools in the jars.

Diane

I think it turned out pretty good. I used Roma tomatoes & I was going to seed them, but I thought the acid from the goo might be counted in the recipe. Then I realized it did say to seed them, so that probably had something to do with it. I let it simmer while I canned pickled jalapenos & bread & butter jalapenos, and then even longer while I prepped peaches for lpinkmountain's peach-maple jam (I'm gonna make waffle topping) and did the first night of a blackberry-peach recipe from Mes Confitures. So after all that time, it is definitly thick enough to stick to a cracker, but it's not like tomato paste. Hopefully that is the correct thickness for that processing time. I love it...I think today I will put it on a sandwich with provolone cheese.

Thanks Diane!

Melissa

Mine turned out with a soft jam-like consistency that's perfect for spreading on toasted bread for bruschetta. Not as thick as tomato paste, definitely.

Absolutely delicious!

Leigh

For me it's turned out just as you say --- thick enough to be spreadable, but a bit runny. Like a soft jam or a medium applesauce, not like tomato paste.

Isn't it delish? I find roasting and peeling all those peppers a MAJOR pain but it's worth it!! This is one recipe of which I give away very little, to be sure to have enough for ME ME ME!

Zabby

Zabby, you're right about roasting the peppers, especially when the a/c is broken! I can't wait till I stop moving around so I can buy a gas grill. Last night I tried to learn from Annie on multitasking, so I let the peppers cool for a long time while I got pickled jalapenos all set up. They were still pretty hot when I started peeling, so I think this recipe is best done in tandem with another recipe to use up the waiting time during roasting & steaming & simmering. 3 other recipes, maybe not necessary, but school starts tomorrow so I want to go out with a bang!

Melissa

Just as long as that bang isn't the forgotten pressure cooker while you are multi-tasking, Melissa. LOL, just kidding.

My roasted red pepper spread also came out thick enough to spread but not as thick as tomato paste, certainly. As for roasting and peeling those peppers, I'm never gonna again. That was too big a PITA for me, if I can't get someone else to prep those peppers, I'm gonna have to do without.

It was mentioned to me that Sam's Club sells big jars of roasted red peppers, already seeded and peeled. Hmmmm. I know that's cheating...

Annie

Annie, I say go for it. I don't think I've seen roasted red peppers that weren't already pickled or in oil. I've definitely thought about getting the big jars of peeled garlic. When I made Katie's soup I got garlic up under the nail of my index finger from scratching at all those peels. Next time I will roast the whole head & squirt them out after, or do like Katie and buy the jar from Sam's.

Melissa

Mine was very thick, and I had to use a spatter screen over the pot while it was boiling. I would say its thick when its like apple sauce. I added some balsamic vinegar to mine, as well as some dried, granulated, onion and garlic, as well as some dried ground ancho peppers. My red peppers, onions and regular garlic were all roasted over a mesquite wood smoke, then pureed. I roasted my peppers on the gas grill outdoors. Took off the grates and set the whole peppers right on the heat bars above the gas burners. Once they blackened, they get put in a big plastic bag where they sweat. Its an easy task to remove the charred skins and rinse them under the faucet to get out all the seeds and stem.

I peeled mine on a cutting board, but didn't rinse off all the seeds, just removed what I could. I didn't want to exchange the dripping juice for water, even though I knew I would boil out the extra moisture anyway. The seeds in the spread don't stand out, and I didn't seed the tomatoes anyway. It was thick enough to put on a sandwich with provolone cheese.

Don't forget, if you use a paper bag to steam the skins off, the bag will rip open if you lift it. :-)

Melissa

I used a big zipper plastic bag, as there is a lot of liquid once they get soft

I put my roasted peppers in a covered pot or pan to steam. Easy to clean and the bottom doesn't fall out of it when I need to carry them to the sink.

Leigh

Melissa,

ouch, roasting peppers in hot weather === no fun! Field ones aren't ripe here until well into fall, when it's not unpleasant to roast 'em, just a lot of work to peel 'em.

I remember that sauce was the first thing I ever cooked in my new home, two years ago in October; I hadn't even moved in yet, but BF was here working on building his shop, and I came for Thanksgiving weekend (2d weekend of October here in Canada). We bought a half-bushel of peppers at the Belleville farmers' market and had to get some disposable aluminum cookie trays since there was no kitchen stuff here (luckily there was an oven). Roasted and peeled the peppers in my new kitchen, here, then brought 'em back to Toronto and made the sauce in my old kitchen just before packing it up.

I remember particularly that composting the skins made me feel very much like this was my real home now --- nothing like composting to make a house a home!

Zabby

Peeling them after roasting (skins turn black and fall off), isn't difficult. The only parts that are tough to get off are the parts that have not been blackened by the roasting. My peppers are never red and ripe in August, as they do need cooler temps which usually gets them to turn red once the are below 75 degrees most of the time.

Yes, I did find out that the bottom will fall out of that paper bag. In addition, my roaster is under my oven and I have to lie on my stomach on the floor to turn the peppers.

So, after I did that, and after I picked them all up off the floor when the bottom fell out of the bag, I still couldn't get the (*&^ peels all off. I decided that it wasn't good enough to do that again, I'd have to buy the peppers already prepared or give it up completely.

Annie

I wonder if they could be run through the Villaware after cooling a bit?
Anyone try that to remove seeds/skins?
Or does it make them too mushy?
Deanna

It's funny, hubby roasted peppers on the grill for me last weekend. The skins pretty much came right off. Maybe it depends on the batch of peppers that you have.

Yes, green roasted peppers are harder to get the skins off. In some cases when the reds blacken during roasting, people think they are burned all the way through. Obviously, this is untrue as they contain a lot of moisture in the flesh, so that part doesn't get burned if the skins just turn black. Removing the skins using a Villaware is fine, but because the skins also soften some, part of the black will also get pushed through the holes of the Villaware screens. A blender is a good method for a puree after removing the skins.

This is what outdoor grills, charcoal or gas, were made for. We know..

For those of you who didn't hear my 2005 saga, we went to the Hatch, NM as my birthday present, and bought mucho mucho Big Jims, and came home to roast them all (in addition to the ones we bought roasted, washed and frozen). This was a portion of our haul.

The original recipe has a name I cannot pronounce. I tasted a roasted red pepper spread at my ex BF's place the first time, and the recipe came from his father. The original recipe is from the former Yugoslavia, don't know which side. It is made by roasting peppers, tomatoes and eggplant if you care for them. Skinning them comes next and you then grind them with a meat grinder, more interesting than puree. Here is the thing though. The last part of the recipe calls for mashing raw garlic with salt, lots of both, than mixing with the pepper and some oil. The taste is to die for, much better even than this spread, which is pretty good. My alternative to this, since it would not be safe to can, is to mash a bit of garlic with a bit of salt and a teaspoon of oil and add it to some of this here pepper spread when I want to eat it, almost like the original. It is amazing with sausages, spread on bread and with omelets too. Actually, I could eat the original with anything. Oh, and I think the oil emulsified with the peppers because the texture was much thicker. Anyway, thought you guys would like to know...

Marie (now going to eat some of my wonderful spread)

No oils should be in home canning!! When I made my red pepper spread, it was to be thick. I used balsamic vinegar in it as well as some rosemary, onions, and garlic, all roasted on the BBQ with Mesquite wood as a smoke. They get pureed in a blender, and I do remove the skins of the peppers. It was so thick I had to use a spatter screen on the top of the pot so it wouldn't plaster my ceiling with hot red globs.