I don't blister the peppers, I blanch them, then slit them. I figure the boiling water will kill most of the bacteria on the outside of the peppers and the vinegar will do a great job for the rest. I have tons of very small jalapenos and this method is perfect for them. If I were to slice them into rings then I'd get loads of seeds and they would be harder to eat if you are like me who wants them whole for bites with cheese. If you use them for salads then making rings is better. I haven't used this recipe for other peppers because the jal's are the only ones I grow. For the cayenne or other small peppers my other farmer friends give me, they go into the dehydrator. Nancy

Are the seedlings from grocery store plants TINY?? I seeded sweet peppers 3/15 and hots 3/16, only have 1 heat mat (old warming tray) that maybe I've been keeping too low, have been switching them on and off of it once a day, I don't remember my setup in 2011 when I planted 2 trays (didn't start many the last 2 years). Have 1 teeny tiny sprout with cots in 1 cell, it looks like a weed to me not a pepper, will wait until it gets true leaves. Planted in mix of peat moss, perlite, Fafard #2 left over from last year and a little Espoma seed starter thrown in. Possible a tiny seed got into the peat moss or Fafard, perlite and Espoma were in ziploc bags so not likely there. I don't know how long to wait for germination - a lot of these were old seed (3 yrs or so), I read in a couple places seed only good for 1 year. But the jalapenos (Early and Gigante) and Hot Lemons were just bought last year, so were the bells (only 3 seeds left but I planted them LOL), Hinkelhatz were saved seed from 2012, the minis were straight out of the fruit (that had been refrigerated but I gave them a few days out of fridge, then cut them open and took the seeds out, let dry a bit on paper towel for another 5 days or so). Will fluctuations in temp from taking on and off the heat (say soil temp is 80 - I think my thermometer is running about 10 degrees low all this year) to 67 degree room temp (60 soil temp?) cause seeds to die? Or just slower going? Maybe it's best to just leave 1 tray on and the other off the heat? This post was edited by ajsmama on Thu, Apr 3, 14 at 9:02

I served sweet potato soup, as a started, for Christmas dinner. I didn't make it, bought it from our new Fresh Market and it was very good.

We made this soup for our "Souper Bowl Party", and I brought the little bit of leftover soup to the office on Monday. They raved about it, and said it had good colors :-)