Roasted pepper salad

I discovered roasted red peppers when I came to the US. I think the first time I had them, they were part of a roast beef sandwich. After that, I bought many jars of roasted peppers to make sandwiches. Thank god, I've left the jar days behind. Roasting peppers at home is easy and the results are superior to any store-bought product.

The easiest way to roast peppers at home is to use the broiler in your oven. Turn it on, and get to preparing the peppers while it's warming up. Red and yellow peppers work best for roasting. You want to cut out the stem and wash away all seeds. Then cut the peppers into flat pieces. Place them skin side up on a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheet on the highest level in your oven. Because the peppers are so close to the broiler, you'll need to keep an eye on them and turn them every few minutes. When the skin is coming off and the peppers are nice and soft, it's time to take them out. Let them cool for a bit and then remove the skins. Voi-la, you have roasted peppers (and a wonderful smelling kitchen!)

You can put your roasted peppers to use as garnish in a sandwich or a green salad. Or, you can make a salad where roasted peppers play the lead role. Here's the recipe I learned from my friend recently:

Roasted pepper salad

1 roasted red pepper
1 roasted yellow pepper
1 ripe tomato
1/4 cup feta cheese
1 tbsp olive oil

Cut your roasted peppers into small pieces (1/8th to 1/4th of an inch on each side) and chop the tomato. Put everything in a salad bowl and add a table spoon of olive oil. Crumble the feta over the salad and mix everything up. The salad tastes great like this, but if you want the flavors to blend a little, you can make it ahead of time and keep it in the fridge for an hour. Also, if you chop everything small and really crumble the feta, you can use this salad in place of salsa for a tasty bruschetta.