Roasted Red Peppers...and a good excuse

I am back from my longest expanse of non-blogging since I started this shindig. And I know that I am coming back with a not-very-exciting post. A how-to for making roasted red peppers. I can feel you deleting me from your RSS readers now. Please don't!

First of all roasted red peppers are possibly the easiest thing to make that most people buy pre-made. I'm not going to say that the jarred variety is tasteless or anything, but it is definitely more expensive. Plus when your peppers start to get a little bit past pretty, you can always roast them up to avoid wasting them. (Not that I do that of course. My produce is always perfectly fresh, local, organic, and seasonal... bell peppers are in season somewhere in February I'm sure.)

My favorite way to eat roasted red (or orange or yellow) peppers is on a good piece of bread. End of story. Sometimes I put them in my hummus. But this little pizza type thing I made last night was also delightful. And ridiculously easy. It would make a good appetizer for guests. Or if you're like me, you can just eat the whole thing yourself in front of the TV. (Interestingly, the episode of Good Eats I was watching was on making pizza dough. So if you need some dough to make a pizza like mine, check out Alton's technique. My pizza is literally just dough, baked half way until it puffs up, then topped with roasted red peppers, some of the oil they are stored in, salt and pepper, and grated Romano cheese, then baked the rest of the way. I make all my pizzas in a 550 degree preheated oven on a preheated cast iron skillet. I lack a pizza stone, but this works.)

Now that I have tried to make my roasted red pepper technique sound invaluable, on to my excuses. I do have an excuse for my long absence! Not that you're interested, but I have two: 1) I ran my second marathon. 2) I had to find and book a place to have my wedding next year.

The second was much more painful than the first, I assure you. The thought of giving up during the marathon never once crossed my mind, but Las Vegas sounded like a viable option some days as I e-mailed venue after venue and did endless calculations of rental+food+tax+....

I did learn a few food-related things from these distractions. First of all, sports jelly beans are much better than Gu. Trust me. Also, "crudite" is my least favorite word of all time. Caterers are always telling you about their crudite, like you're supposed to get excited about some carrot sticks and celery stalks. Puh-lease. Just because it's French doesn't mean it's impressive.

Roasted Red Peppers
Aunt Jenny taught me this, particularly the brown bag trick.

Ingredients:
red, orange, or yellow bell peppers, or a combination
olive oil
garlic cloves
salt
Directions:
-Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with foil.
-Place the bell peppers, whole, on the cookie sheet and roast for five to ten minutes. Check often, and when the peppers start to char slightly, turn them. Continue until all the sides are withered and slightly charred.
-Remove the peppers from the oven and place in brown paper bag. Close the bag. (This will make it easier to remove the skins.
-Once the peppers have cooled, remove the skins, stems and seeds. Place the roasted peppers in a jar and cover with olive oil. Crush two to three garlic cloves (depending on amount of peppers and taste) and put them in the jar with the peppers. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Shake gently to combine, and store in the refrigerator.

These keep for about two weeks. But they rarely last that long.

Sausage, Peppers and Onions...O My

I have had this one sitting around for a long time, and I thought of posting it today when I suggested it to a coworker who was trying to think of something to make for dinner tonight. We make this meal a lot during the week because it is quick and easy and really delicious. We also almost always have the ingredients in the fridge. These go well in a roll or with mashed potatoes.


Sausage, Peppers and Onions
Ingredients:
6 spicy Italian sausages
1 large onions
1 large green pepper
1 bottle beer (lager or ale)
salt/pepper
olive oil

Directions:
-Brown sausages in olive oil on medium high heat in a large frying pan. Add about half of the bottle of beer and simmer on medium heat for about 20 minutes or until the sausage is cooked through. The beer should simmer down into a thick, brown sauce. If the beer starts to get too thick before the sausage is finished cooking, add a little more.
-In a separate frying pan, saute the peppers and onions in olive oil. When the vegetables start to soften, add a little bit of the beer and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Salt and pepper to taste.
-Serve.

Traffic Light Chili: Three Years in the Making

When you are cooking for the masses, and you're not sure exactly how many that is, this is the perfect recipe. In college whenever I made a batch of this I was amazed how many people it fed, and how many people showed up to eat it. I never had a name for it, but I wanted something clever for the blog and the green, yellow, red... and orange peppers make this chili really colorful. And delish. Other than the peppers, there are four different kinds of beans, onion, tons of seasoning, and corn. No meat, but with all that other good stuff, who needs it?

I said it was three years in the making, but really I haven't changed the recipe much since I got back from Egypt. I started making it when I was living there, and made it probably at least two times a month (X10 months) for my roommates and a handful of other Americans living there, who humored me and ate it over and over and over again until I got the flavors just right. The only thing that has changed since I moved back is adding black beans, which weren't available there, and sadly I don't have Egyptian beer (Sakkara or Stella), which was so bad it was almost good.

I always said I wanted to enter this in a chili cook off, but until that day comes, I'm sending it to a blog event called Fourth Helping of Susan's My Legume Love Affair.


Traffic Light Chili
Ingredients:
olive oil
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium vidalia onions, roughly chopped
1 each: red, yellow, orange, and green bell pepper, roughly chopped (4 peppers total)
1 12 oz. bottle beer
2 cans black beans, drained*
2 cans kidney beans, drained*
1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas), drained*
1 can cannelini beans, drained*
1 28 0z. jar crushed tomatoes
1 6 0z. can tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tbs. cinnamon
1 tbs. chili powder
1 1/2 tbs. paprika
1/2 tbs. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 can corn*
(For added spice you can add chopped jalapenos, a dash of hot sauce or crushed red pepper. I've tried all three.)

*15.5 oz.

Directions:
-Heat olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion and simmer until it starts to soften. Add peppers. Cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
-Pour in about half of a bottle of beer. (I used Yuengling.)
-Add all the beans, crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir in seasoning.
-When the chili starts to simmer, lower the heat to low and continue to stir occasional for 30-45 minutes or until the peppers are just soft. Add more of the beer if the chili starts to get too thick. Add the corn in and leave on the heat for 10 more minutes so the corn heats through.