Oven Roasted Bell Pepper Sauce

It’s Recipe Redux time again!

I love this month’s theme…

Fresh from the Garden

The season of bountiful produce has arrived. Whether your produce comes from the Farmers Market, a CSA share, or a plot of dirt out back, show how you are using fresh July fruits or veggies.And if you have gardening successes – or failures – please share!

…because I love everything about fresh vegetables and my husband loves everything about gardening!  For the past few years my husband has planted a vegetable garden and I plant an herb garden.  My gardening style is a plant it and allow nature to take it’s course (meaning I am a bit neglectful of it once it gets into the ground), but my husband is more of a hands on kinda gardener, he plants it, prunes it, talks about it and stands, arms folded and watches it. He also created a pretty extensive  drip irrigation for it, and a really cool net-box-thing to keep critters out. But sadly this year, despite his best efforts and all the rain we got, we didn’t have a great harvest.  Meaning we had a repectable amount of strawberries, but very few tomatoes, bell peppers or cucumbers, 1 simple asparagus,  the squash borers ate our yellow squash and zucchini plants and the green beans were all a little small and swiveled. 

Such a sad tale.

But no worries, he is already working on his soil revitalization plan for next year!  See, this is why I love this guy, he will not let few shriveled green beans or squash borers get him down!  I have a feeling Twellman garden 2016, is going to be EPIC!!!!!!

But in the meantime, I just have to buy my veggies at the grocery store or farmers market.  In spite of our poor gardening success, Texas actually has a lot of great locally grown produce this year, and I was able to pick these beauties up at my local store, in the “locally grown section”.  Awesome!

I am not sure if you noticed, but I love cooking with bell peppers, they are just so flavorful! Today I am making an Oven Roasted Bell Pepper Sauce, I am putting this sauce over pasta, but it is actually super versatile and is great as a sauce over chicken, shrimp, and fish.

It’s just an all around simple, versatile and delicious sauce!  I hope you enjoy it!

So lay your whole pepper on a foil lined (for easy clean up) baking sheet. Place in a a 400-degree oven for 20min per side.

After the first 20 minutes, flip them over using tongs. Cook an additional 20 minutes

Look how browned and awesome they look!

Allow them to cool for a bit, so they are easy to handle.  Then pull out the stem and remove the seeds by gently scraping with a spoon.

Next, we are going to remove the skins.  You can use your fingers, because the skins will easily  just peel off.

Then place your skinless peppers on a cutting board and dice.

And toss this pepper skin carnage in the trash…see why I suggested using foil to line your baking sheet? 🙂

Then place pepper in a large skillet with olive oil, diced onions and minced garlic.

Saute until the onions are tender.

Then place in a blender to puree.

Then pour the pureed bell peppers back into the skillet.

Then add 1 cup of chicken broth.

And 1 Tbsp of fresh oregano (from the garden) and a pretty generous pinch of coarse sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

Serve over pasta or cook with chicken or seafood.   Feel free to be creative with this one because really it’s great with just about anything!

Enjoy!