Fresh Ground Paprika

Winter means seed catalogs. As a homesteader and farmer, your hopes and ambitions are high when the temperature is low. Last year we were definitely dreaming big as I was overly pregnant and had a case of serious cabin fever. We pored over catalogs. And Dan came across these beauties. Paprika...why not?

We had some beautiful plants, in fact the paprika plants were the healthiest and seemingly most productive of our peppers. We would have gotten more, but our little white tailed back yard friends liked them more. Rotten deer.

But, I digress. We collected a number of peppers, seeded, and sliced them. We don't have a food dehydrator (it's on the wish list!), so we used our oven at the lowest temperature. The peppers roasted for about 10 hours. We didn't need any ground at the time, so we simply put them in an airtight container and put them in our pantry.

A few weekends ago, we decided to grind them up. I wish I had more pictures of the process, but the smell had us mesmerized. We used our small food processor, but it might have been a little more efficient with a coffee grinder. Live and learn! If you enjoy growing your own herbs and spices, paprika should be on your list!