Cooking Up Trouble

I signed off yesterday with the bold statement that I was off to do something exciting to blog about today. (You know, blog is a really silly verb. Why don’t I just say “write”?) (I believe it is because blogging is a specific type of writing. In other words, I’ll say “write” when I mean “write” and “blog” when I mean “blog.” Quit bugging me about my word choices!) (But I digress.)

It will probably come as a shock to no one that all I did was read a trashy novel and go to bed. But before I made my blog post, I did indulge in some activity that was not without points of interest and Mohawk Valley connection. I cooked with some green peppers purchased at the Ilion Farmer’s Market. Of course, this is not a cooking blog. Then again, it isn’t a running blog, a gardening blog or a wine blog. That doesn’t stop me.

I had purchased the peppers a week or so ago with no real plan of how or when to use them. I admit I mostly bought them because the guy selling them was nice, and because he caught me as I was walking out and said, “Sure you don’t want those peppers?” I am rather a pushover. They are the long thin green peppers. They’re hot, but not too hot, the guy said. If I fix anything too hot, it makes Steven’s bald spot sweat (that is his description; I repeat it because I think it’s funny).

I decided to try roasting the peppers. My sister Diane told me how to roast peppers. You cut the peppers in half, take out the seeds and place them open side down on a tin foil lined pan. After about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, you take them out and wrap them in the tin foil. After leaving them in the tin foil for a while (I’ve been known to put it in the refrigerator and forget about them for a day or two), you peel them — that part is sometimes easy but is more often a huge pain — and they are ready for use.

I’ve done this with bell peppers. The first eight or ten times I did it, I would have to call Diane and ask was it 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven or 40 minutes in a 200 degree oven? I would write this down on a piece of paper on the telephone table and put it in a good place where I would be sure not to lose it. Monday I trusted my memory. I can hear some of you saying, “Big mistake!”

I also trusted that the skinny long peppers would behave the same way as bell peppers. As it turns out, that was a bigger mistake. In the first place, the peppers are a little too twisty to just cut in half. Then once you get them kind of sort of in half, what a pain in the butt to get all of those seeds out! It was not long before I decided I was not going to roast all the peppers I had bought. To save even more time I decided to roast a few of them whole and see how that worked out.

I would like to mention here that I did consult an authority in the matter. I looked up roasted peppers in Joy of Cooking, an excellent book with a wealth of knowledge about all things culinary. There were pages and pages about peppers: kinds of peppers, how to cook them, recipes. Really, a plethora of information. Do you suppose there was a recipe on how to roast peppers in the oven? I’m afraid not. They did include the stove top method: you put the peppers directly on the gas burner. What kind of bullshit cooking advice is that? Why don’t I just set my house on fire and cook the entire contents of my refrigerator and pantry? Perhaps I just do not understand cooking books. I’m sure there are many excellent chefs out there who utilize the stove top method exactly as outlined in Joy of Cooking and achieve excellent results. I personally did not try it.

What I did try, and I have christened it the Diane Bell Pepper Method, did not work. I did manage to separate a few measly pieces of pepper from their skins, but for the most part: too thin, too small. I need to find another method.

Or, I could just not roast them. I see this post is getting rather long, so I will stop here, but to end on an upbeat note: I used some of the unroasted peppers in what turned out to be a rather tasty supper dish. If I finish that trashy novel tonight, maybe I’ll blog about that tomorrow.