I'm doing a Rancho Gordo order and would like some ideas on chile peppers

Other than ancho and pasilla dried peppers, and jalepeno I grow in my garden, plus pablanos, I don't know much about other types. Does anyone have experience with cascabel chiles? Or any other that Rancho Gordo offers?

Mainly, I use peppers in salsa, chicken, beef and pork dishes, and beans. I like heat but not the blow my head off heat.

[Jenise]

Karen, Larry is our resident chilehead and can give you better advice than I, but I'll offer my minimal experience with them. I remember them as mild-med in heat, and they had a nice flavor that was very slightly smokey though not especially distinctive. What I liked about them was their size--want just a little chile flavor? Well, they're little chiles. But outside of that I didn't find them especially compelling addition to a pantry that always has super-smokey chipotles, mild ancho and pasilla chiles, and very hot red pepper flakes from Chongqing China on hand. Between the others, I can achieve just about any degree of chile-ness needed, and when I ran out of cascabels I never replaced them.

Thanks Jenise, that all makes good sense to me. The jalapeno peppers I grow produce so many that I always have red and green ones frozen in my freezer. They last me all winter until the next crop. The freezing does not seem to make them less hot, in fact, I wondered if they get hotter. The peppers are all fun to play with but I've been known to get recipes a bit too hot!