Roasted Sweet Pepper Skewers

Sunday in my house is Farmer’s Market day.  Our market is right by the Target downtown,  which makes it just perfect for checking out the potatoes AND the Dollar Spot.  I mean, that’s basically a perfect outing in my book.

While at the market, we pick up seasonal favorites like asparagus and strawberries (I mourn the end of your season, brussels sprouts), but there is one main stay: big bunches of kale and chard to last us through the week. 

The crappy part about buying most of your vegetables once a week is how wilted they can become by Saturday morning.  Sometimes I’m making my chard omelettes with leaves that have certainly seen better days.  I’m constantly moving all the produce in my fridge around and playing with temperature control to try to find the right spot and the right climate.  It’s a game I seriously haven’t quite been able to win.

And then this month, OXO was kind enough to send me one of their new GreenSaver containers.

This cool container saves my produce in three ways.  First, it controls the humidity, helping to keep the items crisp and fresh.  The inside of the container has a sturdy basket (seriously, REALLY sturdy) that lifts the produce away from the walls of the container and promotes airflow (unlike a plastic bag).  And then there’s the brilliant carbon filter made from coconut husks- the magic potion of the equation.  The filter absorbs ethylene gas using the non-toxic husks to prevent spoilage.

To help us try out the GreenSaver, I was also sent a bunch of the brightest sweet peppers from Melissa’s Produce.  These babies were SO pretty and I wanted to use them right away, but I was determined to put the GreenSaver to the test and wait AT LEAST a week.  I ended up waiting 9 days.  NINE DAYS.  And the peppers were just as lovely when I prepped them for the recipe as the day I put them in.

Peppers are pretty hardy though- how would the container work with leafy greens?  Greens like kale and lettuce can be notoriously difficult to store, especially when they’ve been washed and torn into pieces.  So I tested the GreenSaver again with a big bunch of chard.  I washed it, dried it, tore it into bite sized pieces and then stashed it for a week.  I am not exaggerating even a tiny bit when I say that the greens were PERFECT a week later.  There wasn’t a bit of wilting and the edges were crisp and moist- not brown or dried out.  I’m ridiculously impressed.

While I was waiting for my initial pepper to test to finish, I chatted with Alyssa about sweet peppers and all the ways we like to eat them.  I generally use them in breakfast scrambles or stir frys, but she shared this great idea: over the holidays, she’d roasted the sweet peppers with a bit of olive oil and salt and set them out as appetizers.  Whoa.  SAY NO MORE.

Start with two pounds of sweet peppers.  Skewer the peppers and line them up on a baking sheet.

Drizzle the top of the peppers with 3 tablespoons olive oil and 1 teaspoon kosher salt.

Roast in a 450 degree oven for 7 minutes, then rotate the skewers to cook the peppers on the reverse side.  Cook for an additional 7-10 minutes, until the skin is blistered.

That’s it!  Putting them on the skewers makes them easy to turn while roasting, but also makes them easy to serve as a side.

Alyssa likes to use LOTS of olive oil (way more than 3 tablespoons).  This way, she can store the extra flavored oil to use in salad dressings or for adding extra flavor to other roasted vegetables (especially potatoes).

Apart from eating them off the skewers as an appetizer or side, try them in scrambled eggs, pasta, sandwiches or salads- or even with crusty bread and goat cheese.