When Joel asked me if I wanted to go ‘halves’ on a bushel of fresh roasted green chiles with his mom this past weekend, I didn’t think twice.

Heck yes, I do!  Fresh is waaaaaaay better than canned, hands down!

We drove out to meet her at Palombo’s Roadside Market in Brighton to see what there is to see.  I’m told this is where the locals go, this is where the freshest local produce can be found, and this farmer’s market is a real, puts other ‘parking-lot-tent-style’ farmer’s markets to shame, kind of farmer’s market.

Our kids were so excited to see all of the veggies laid out in front of them (as if I’d never taken them to a grocery store’s produce isle a day in their lives?!).  Aiden was telling strangers how much he loved tomatoes, how he thought we should buy all the carrots so he can eat them up and grow big and strong and how much he loves colored bell peppers and that he thought we should have a bell pepper party with all the different colors.  He wanted to buy everything!

Aaaaand, I failed to get any good photos of our shopping and roasting experience because I was so distracted by all of the produce, Aiden’s questions and Drew’s curiosity.

Just these two made the camera roll (I should really start carrying the Canon with me):

Aiden was a little peeved that I told him we couldn’t buy these large pumpkins.  I captured his beautiful scowl at the camera as Drew was distracted Aiden’s pouty foot stomp.

Immediately followed by his boyish grinning eyes as he tried to hide his smile because he found a rock he wanted to keep.

So, we decided on a medium heat green chile, by the bushel (which is about 25lbs raw), to split between us.  At Palombo’s, you buy by the bushel and they roast for free.  Once roasted, one bag went home with Grandma Denise, and one bag came home with us.

I was beyond excited!  The smell in the car was so delicious, I started daydreaming about all the fun things I can do with the fresh roasted green chiles.  Little did I know this would turn into an all day event.

First, you have to let the hot chiles steam up in the bag they come home in ~ to further soften the skins for easy peeling.

Grab your food service gloves ~ (depending on the heat of the chiles) you really don’t want to accidentally stick a hot finger in your eye later.  The skins should easily peel off after 45 mins-1 hour of steaming.  Just grab the chile by the stem with one hand and rub the skins off with the other.

See the difference?

Once they’re all peeled, you can throw them in the freezer as-is, seeds, stems and all.

Or turn on some music, grab a cutting board, a sharp knife, a fresh pair of gloves and get to stemming, seeding and chopping these beauties.  …And let the Chile-a-thon begin!

I prefer to get the hard work done at the beginning so when I’m ready to throw these into a recipe, they’re ready to go.  Invest the time now to save time later.

I left the stems on about 2 dozen, but seeded them, for chile rellenos that I plan to make this weekend.  The rest, I cut the stems off and quickly pulled out a bulk of the seeds from the top (left the rest of the seeds), then chopped ’em for soups, stews, cornbread, etc down the road.  Freeze everything right away, then defrost when ready to use.

Of course, by this time of the night I was tired, my hand had gone numb from chopping and I had to have Joel help seal all the bags, flatten them out and throw them in the freezer.  It wasn’t until I was washing up and wiping down the counters that I realized I forgot to takes pics of the finished product.  And now they’re somewhere in the abyss of the large freezer in the garage and I’m too lazy to dig them up.  Wow, bad day for my camera memory…Sorry!

So, is it worth it?  Heck yes, y’all!  Think of all of the fun things you can addfresh roasted green chiles to!

• Green Chile Stew (obviously)
• Chile Rellenos, crunchy or soft
• Southwestern Chicken & Green Chile Stew
• Breakfast Casserole
• Cornbread or Corn Casserole
• Red Chili
• Hamburgers
• etc, etc, etc!

What’s your favorite green chile dish?  Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear how you use this super awesome-a-thon worthy veg.

Happy Green Chile Trails to you!  Now go get yourself a bushel, invite some family or friends over and host a green chile-a-thon of your own.  Let me know how it turns out.

Love ya!

~pw