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!

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. 

White Wine Sangria - Party Sized!

For summer vacation, I went home to Canada for the week. The weather was cooler than Seoul, but it was a refreshing break from the heat. My mom and dad threw me a lovely barbeque filled with food, friends, and fun. I thought it would be nice to make a classic summer drink to enjoy, so I took advantage of the Ontario fresh fruits and whipped up a HUGE party sized white wine sangria.

Fresh veggies from my parents garden!

A delicious artichoke and cream cheese dip.

Ingredients

2 bottles of dry white wine 1 bottle of sparkling dry white wine
2-3 cans of soda water
1 lemon
1 lime
1 peach
1 pear
1 granny smith apple
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup raspberries
1/2 cup strawberries

Cut all of your fruit into slices or small chunks and throw into a large pitcher. Pour one bottle of white wine, sparkling wine, and one can of soda water over top. As you drink the sangria add in more soda water and the remaining bottle of white wine. Don’t forget to enjoy the delicious liquor soaked fruit!

This recipe made enough sangria for about 8 people to have 3 to 4 glasses of it and there were still leftovers!

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Asparagus is one of my favorite veggies. In Korea, asparagus can be expensive. I recently found it at my local mart and the price was finally reasonable. Asparagus tastes delicious cooked every which way. I usually like to steam it and cover it with a little butter and parmesan cheese, but since I’d already had it twice this week I thought I’d try a healthier option.  This delicious fresh veggie goes well as a side dish or can be added to a pasta or rice dish.

Ingredients

1 small bunch of asparagus
1 tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
1 clove of garlic
pinch of salt
pinch of cracked black pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 ̊ F (200 ̊ C). Break off the ends of your asparagus. Sometimes, it’s sad to see a few inches of your beautiful asparagus discarded, but don’t worry, those discarded ends are the woody bits and are lacking in moisture. The asparagus will break naturally where the woody part meets the fresh green part. Next, lay the asparagus out on a cookie sheet. Drizzle the olive oil and lemon juice over the asparagus. Then, put the garlic through a garlic press and spread over the asparagus. Use your hands and don’t be afraid to get messy! Sprinkle the salt and pepper over the asparagus and pop in the oven for about 15 minutes.

                                                                        Serves two.