Sicilian Pepper Salad

Roasting Peppers

History: As a young child and all through my growing up, I watched my mother and father roast peppers. Because we were in Southern Colorado they roasted Anaheims. They would get them by the bushels and roast them all up and freeze them in small bags.
There are many ways to roast peppers, but I am going to give you the way our family roasted them.

My parents roasted them on a gas grill. They blackened the peppers and put them in a paper sack to cool. My mom always said that the paper sack helped them to sweat off the skins. I don't know if it is true, but I do it exactly like she does it.

My Nonna was on the east coast. She roasted red bell peppers, and it is because of her that they are my favorite pepper. She roasted peppers by placing them under the broiler on a cookie sheet covered with foil.

Here is the recipe that started with Nonna, and continued with my mother. We called it pepper salad.

Pepper Salad

Ingredients:

• 8-10 roasted peppers (peeled) sliced thin
• 1 tablespoon of garlic
• 1 can of Italian crushed plum tomatoes(My mom always bought Progresso tomatoes because she said that the tomatoes made the salad)
• Olive Oil

Directions:

1. Put about a 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan.
2. Fry garlic for a few seconds, and then add the peppers and tomatoes.
3. You keep stirring the mixture until the juice from the tomatoes has cooked out of the peppers. Can take about 20 minutes on medium heat.
4. It will look like lots of peppers with the tomatoes intermingled.

Serve it cool or warm. We ate it with tortillas, but it could go on pizza or Italian bread. I like it over a regular salad too.

Buon Appetito