what’s cooking wednesday – roasted peppers

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Well, it’s not a dish that is this What’s Cooking Wednesday but it is such a versatile and flavorful vegetable that it deserves a post.

Bell peppers season has ended for some of you and others like here are still getting beautiful and excellent priced peppers. Here’s a way to store some summer flavors for winter use.

In roasting these peppers I tried green, red, yellow, and orange. They all roasted the same but in terms of sweetness I personally would only roast red peppers in the future. They tend to be a bigger pepper so it’s more bang for your buck but if yellow or orange peppers should fall in my lap I wouldn’t waste them. Green peppers don’t roast up that well, I feel they have many other uses but roasting doesn’t bring out their best qualities.

Roasting peppers is really easy and can be done on top a gas stove, oven, or grill. If you haven’t tried this before I recommend you do, it’s easy and the roasted pepper is oh so tasty.

Roasting Bell Peppers

Take whole bell peppers and put in a hot oven, on gas stove, or grill. You want to roast all sides of the pepper, it will turn black, no worries.

Once the peppers are roasted on all sides put them in a zip lock bag and seal it or in a big bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Leave peppers in bag or bowl until they are cool enough to work with. Now the messy part. Remove peppers and rub off the skin of the peppers until all the skin is removed. Do not rinse pepper in water, your rinsing off some roasting flavor. Remove stems and seeds.

At this point you can freeze, can, or eat these yummy peppers. I like to freeze the peppers in small baggies. If you don’t want the peppers to freeze together then layer the roasted peppers on in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer. Once they are frozen you can put in a plastic baggie and back in the freezer. That way they are mot stuck together and you can pull out what you need.

Put a large slice on a portabella mushroom burger, make some bell pepper hummus or relish, add to a pasta dish, or add to scrambled eggs. Many yummy uses.

What is your favorite use for roasted bell peppers?