I’ve known oven roasted peppers for a long time, however my memories of them have been everything but pleasant. My mum or grandma used to serve those peppers in salad, always with tons of coarsely chopped garlic. I disliked (raw) garlic a lot as a child since my family enjoyed adding it to each and every sort of salad…
And so, when I got a bit older, I would start preparing salad for myself in a separate bowl, free from all that exaggerated amount of stinky garlic. Yuck! In fact I grew to appreciate garlic only a couple of years ago, as I started to cook by myself. I still can’t stand it in salads (basil pesto and tzatziki are the only two dishes, containing raw garlic, that I actually like to eat), but otherwise I really got accustomed to adding it to many a cooked dish, specially I like to pair it with mustard and thyme marinated chicken breast (yummy!).

OK, back to today’s topic! I’ve been wanting terribly much to make my own oven roasted peppers for a long time now, here -for a change- they can cost you a little fortune so I’ve decided to put an end to over-spending for a product I could easily prepare at home! And after two baking tins of this red goodness, I can now proclaim my eternal love for roasted peppers, and even more, my obsession of this month!

Of course, before getting to the stuff, I just had to do a little research. Knowing other people’s experiences is always helpful, specially those concerning the “ever-differing” kitchen appliance called oven. I believe every single oven works in a bit different way and owning a small, portable (and sometimes unpredictable) oven I’ve learned to appreciate every single advice on this matter. After reading Alanna’s instructions I just knew her tip would work fine with my oven. Namely, her advice not to roast whole peppers but rather cut them in half lengthwise and roast them clean from the inner membranes and seeds, proved to be more than right – the roasting process took no more than 15 minutes and the peeling went faster than I’d thought. Here I’d like to thank Alanna for her useful tip!

I took some photos in order to show you how the whole procedure goes (in case you’ve never tried it yourself). It’s no big deal, really, you just need a bit of patience when it comes to peeling.

Place the washed and cleaned, half lengthwise cut peppers on the baking tray (or oven rack), lined with foil. The peppers should be placed as close to each other as possible and with the cut part facing down

Place the baking tin with peppers in the oven (the middle rack), preheated at 240ºC and in about 15 minutes (more or less), peppers will look like on this photo. Now cover them with another piece of foil and let them sweat for 10 minutes or so. Like this they will peel easier

Now peel off their skins with your fingers (no knife needed here). If peppers are evenly roasted, you should encounter no difficulties doing it. However, treat them with patience, and think of the tasty result!

Cut them up into thin slices (if you wish), place in jars and keep in the fridge - or eat right away with a simple vinaigrette dressing. Roasted peppers pair great with meat, too and make a nice side dish to just about anything

I’ll be roasting more peppers in the following days. I’ll try the green and yellow peppers as well, although in my opinion the red roasted peppers taste best.