I’ve decided that we’re going to have our vegetarian meal tonight…lentil soup and stuffed red peppers. The pepper recipe calls for roasting the peppers. If I had an outdoor grill, that would really be the easiest way to do it. The idea is to place the peppers over a fire, keep turning them until all sides are black and charred. Then you place them in a paper bag roll the top down to close it, and let steam, and then cool. Then you can just rub the charred skin off the peppers, remove the seeds from the inside, and the peppers are ready to use.
Now if I had an outdoor grill, and it were a bit warmer outside, I’d love to do it that way…bring out a cooler of beer, sit on my nice outdoor furniture, and chill out. But since I don’t have any of those things, and it’s a bit too cold out anyway, indoor cooking it is.
The indoor way to roast peppers, ideally, is over a gas stove burner. But that’s another thing I don’t have, so I’m doing them in the toaster oven instead. It takes a little longer, but it works better than using the regular oven. I just have to keep checking and turning the peppers as needed.
I was looking on the Christina Cooks website, and she has a pretty large recipe archive. If you want to try any of her recipes before deciding whehter or not to buy any of her books, this is a good way to do so. Here is the Stuffed Roasted Red Peppers recipe that I’ll be making. And here is the Spicy Lentil Soup that we’re having with it.
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Today I saw a similar recipe for the peppers on Chef Hubert Keller’s cooking show. Here is the .pdf file of the recipe that I got from his site. He doesn’t roast and peel the peppers, he just cuts them in half lengthwise, stuff them with the filling, and braises them in a pan with some vegetable broth. He also uses a few other veggies in his filling. But you can add what you want…I have some fresh asparagus that I really should use up…I might put that in my pepper filling.
If you don’t want to deal with the extra work of roasting and peeling the peppers, Chef Keller’s recipe is a good one to try. Just know that you won’t get the smoky flavor of the roasted peppers.
Gotta go check on my peppers now…oh, do they ever smell yummie! 
