You Lika da Peppa- Part Dos

After preserving over a dozen jars of pepper jam, my fridge still contained a large quantity of red peppers and what better to do with red peppers than Roast them! Now I love buying those lovely yellow cans of roasted red peppers in the store and eating them with crispy bread and cheese but have never tried to create myself. It was intimidating and seemed time consuming.. how could I possibly get regular fresh peppers to that deliciously slimy consistency that they were in the can? Well, my friends never think those thoughts again because these peppers were a snap!

Simply place 4-5 red peppers on a cookie sheet preferably with parchment or foil. Turn your oven to 325 degrees. Place peppers in oven for one hour. Turn every 20 minutes or so. Remove from oven and cover with a towel for about an hour.
Now this seems like a long time but while roasting these peppers and letting them sit under the towel I multi-tasked and managed to clean my kitchen sink, do laundry, go the gym and do grocery shopping and when I returned these little babies where ready to have their skins slipped! I sliced of the top stem and peeled the skin right off! Then rinse out the seeds and boom RoASTED! You can throw a splash of olive oil and salt on them and eat right away on crispy bread but I took this one further to make a spread.
Now keep in mind the amazing red pepper spread that is to follow can also be prepared with your everyday roasted red peppers from a can as well if you don't feel like getting fancy smancy but let me also say that roasting your own peppers in not only significantly more delicious but also significantly more satisfying.

Roasted Red Pepper Spread
In a food processor or blender, combine 2 cups of roasted red peppers, 2 Tbl of olive oil, 2 tsp of salt, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup of fresh basil. Blend to a spread.
While preparing this spread, I sauteed some onion, garlic and Italian sausage, then boiled some pasta and wilted some spinach in with the sausage when done cooking. I coated the pasta with roasted red pepper spread and topped with spinach/sausage mixture and asiago cheese... Voila. Dinner.

Two days later with more spread to spare, I smeared toasted baguettes with goat cheese and topped with pepper spread alongside some kalamata olives and wine.