Kitchen Tricks: Quick and Easy Roasted Red Peppers

I love the flavour of roasted red peppers, but the task of roasting them can be daunting sometimes. Today I’m going to let you in on a little secret, how to roast red peppers in a no fuss and easy way. All you need is an oven (or toaster oven, for all my Korea readers).

Here’s how:

1.      Cut your peppers in quarters and trim off the white part and discard seeds.

2.      Place them on a baking sheet face down so the skins are exposed.

3.      Set your oven to broil and move the oven rack closest to the top heat element.

4.      Place the peppers into the oven and wait for about 15-20 minutes until the skins have

bubbled and turned mostly black.

5.      Take the peppers out of the oven and throw them into a zipper bag or plastic

container while still hot.

6.      Close the zipper bag or container and wait for 10 minutes.

7.      After 10 minutes the skins will be easy to peel off.

8.      Now you can cut and eat the peppers or toss them into a jar with some olive oil and

use them later.

Tip: Sometimes your grocery store or vegetable stand will sell large bags of peppers that are ripe and ready to use for a low price. However, if you are only cooking for one or two people, you probably don’t even consider buying a bag of them. What you can do is roast them and store them ina jar or container with olive oil, so you have roasted red peppers to use in any of your delicious cooking adventures. Next time you see one of these great deals, be sure to pick one up and try it yourself!

Chicken and Basil Pizza

Yesterday, the Simmering Seoulmate and I were craving a nice homemade pizza. We had some red onion, red peppers and fresh basil left in the refrigerator, so we decided to combine them. The basil was a lucky find from a small grocery store at D-Cube in Sindorim. I’ve added it to pasta dishes and really enjoyed it. Fresh herbs are hard to come by in my area, so I’d hate to see them go to waste. We also found fennel! I can’t wait to make one of our favorite sausage and fennel pasta dishes soon.

I hope you are having a great month and enjoying some cooler weather. This pizza is easy and delicious. Enjoy!

Ingredients
1 ball of pizza dough (I used this recipe from Bobby Flay which makes enough dough for 2 pizzas)
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 cups shredded pizza cheese
2 chicken breasts cooked and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1/2 red onion cut into thin slices

1 roasted red pepper finely chopped
handful of fresh basil

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 ̊F (200 ̊C). Roll out your dough and place it in your desired pan. Spread tomato sauce over the dough. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the pizza. Add red onion and roasted red pepper. Spoon the chicken over the pizza. Cook pizza for about 25 minutes. Add the fresh basil leaves after the pizza is removed from the oven.

Makes 1 pizza.

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Happy Sunday everyone! Last week, I made stuffed peppers for the second time. They are quickly becoming a weeknight dinner favourite in my house. They are fairly easy to put together and you can add whatever kind of meat and veggies you’d like. The quinoa really fills you up! This is a dish that can be made vegetarian by simply skipping the meat. I hope you give them a try.

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable stock
500g ground pork
1 head of broccoli chopped
½ onion finely diced
4 cloves of garlic
4 large red peppers
Pinch cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp chili powder

Preheat oven to 400  ̊F. Add quinoa to vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer on low for 15 minutes. While the quinoa is cooking, steam broccoli for about 10 minutes and chop into small pieces. Cook onions and garlic with ground pork in a frying pan with a splash of olive oil and some salt and pepper, until the pork is no longer pink. Cut the tops off the peppers and use a spoon to scoop out the seeds. Once your quinoa is finished cooking add the pork mixture and steamed broccoli and stir to combine. Spoon the filling into the peppers until filled all the way.

Topping
3 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
1 tbsp butter
½ tsp Italian seasoning

Melt the butter and combine ingredients in a bowl. Sprinkle on top of the stuffed peppers and bake for 30 minutes at 400  ̊F

After stuffing the 4 peppers fully, there was some filling left over, which I ate later that week for lunch, but you could definitely stuff 6 peppers if you wanted too.