SSE member Lucina Cress once told Diane Ott Whealy, "An elderly lady grew these peppers in Ohio and passed them on to me. The chocolate is still my favorite, always so mild and sweet and all the plants would produce early and kept coming on till frost." Lucina had been making the stuffed peppers for more than a decade. "I think I first listed the pepper seed in the 1981 Seed Savers Exchange [Yearbook]. I always offered to send the recipe for stuffing and canning with the pepper seed. Each year our branch of the hospital auxiliary stuffed miniature peppers for the hospital bazaar. We canned over seven hundred jars some years and we were sold out by 11 a.m."

Lucina's recipe for her Miniature Stuffed Peppers:

Shred cabbage fine (SSE staff recommend the 'Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage'). For each 3 quarts of cabbage, add 2 1/2 teaspoons salt and let stand for 20 minutes.

While the cabbage is soaking, wash enough of Lucina's Miniature Bell peppers of all colors to make 15 pints. Cut a small opening on top and take out the seeds. (I always save the seeds to offer in the Yearbook and hope everyone else does too!)

Squeeze the liquid off cabbage and discard.

Add to cabbage:

1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed
1 1/2 teaspoons mustard seed
2/3 cup vinegar
2/3 cup sugar

Mix cabbage and stuff inside the peppers. Place in jars. Boil together:

4 cups sugar
4 cups white vinegar
2 cups water

Pour over peppers in jars and seal. Process in hot water bath for 15 minutes.

Order seeds for Miniature Chocolate, Miniature Red, and Miniature Yellow Bell Peppers in our online store!

Taken from SSE co-founder Diane Ott Whealy's new book, Gathering: Memoir of a Seed Saver.

Our mission is to conserve and promote America’s culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants. www.seedsavers.org