A fall tradition in our family: peppers and eggplants from the local farm

         One of the fall traditions that we introduced with our kids as soon as they can walk is going to a local farm and picking eggplants and peppers. We love eggplants because after roasting on charcoal or wood we freeze them for a Romanian eggplant salad  (link here). We also love to roast and freeze sweet and hot red bell peppers.  This year we even attempted pickling jalapeno peppers picked from the farm since our daughter Alexis loves hot peppers as much as us. The taste of our own prepared peppers is out of this world. There is nothing at the grocery store that compares in taste and texture with our own peppers at a fraction of price that you pay at the store.
         The kids don't care what we have them pick as long as we take them with us at the farm and let them take the tractor ride.  We end-up canning about 20 lbs of eggplants and 70 lbs of peppers of various kind every year. We had introduced some of our neighbors and friends to our tradition and they all love it.

Fall 2013: Tractor pulls the kids to the fields

Fall 2010 - Luca (5) and daddy bringing in the "picked goods"

Fall 2013: Alexis (11) and Luca (8)  were helping wash the peppers picked at the farm. Luca lost interest right after he helped build the fire but Alexis continued like in the last years to help with all that is needed to get the veggies ready for winter.

 Fall 2010 -Eggplants on the grills

 2010 - Alexis (8) is daddy's helper at the grills

 This is how far we grill the eggplants : until the skin is flaking burned and the meat of the eggplants turns creamy color and soft inside.

2010:  After the grilled eggplants cool a little, we peel the burned skin off, remove the stems and freeze two eggplants per bag for winter Romanian eggplant salad  (spread). 

After the eggplants are grilled, the wood charcoal gets replenished and the bell peppers go next on the grills.

2010: Alexis continued to stay interested and helps turning the peppers during grilling.

We also peel the skins off the bell peppers and without removing the seeds we place them in freezer bags (about 5 pieces  per bag which is one serving for each member of the family plus one extra for me) and place and then freeze. During winter we add olive oil, vinegar, salt and garlic for a fantastic side dish to our meat meals.

Is this going to be something you would like to do with your kids in the fall?