Roast Red Peppers with Tomatoes

 Following the Christmas holiday I went through the fridge to see what needed using up.  I hate wasting and sometimes you have so much food in over the holidays that some things get missed.

The red peppers in the veg drawer were not at their shiniest but still far from at the end. Roast peppers are always great to make, I often make them in advance, for a side dish or roast red pepper and tomato soup or pasta sauce.  The oil is also kept for a future pasta sauce.

Firstly cut the peppers in half trying to keep some of the stem intact.  Clean out the membrane and seeds and lay flat in a deep ovenproof dish.  Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Finely chop a couple of cloves of garlic ( I only used one clove but it was a giant garlic from The Isle of Wight!)

and sprinkle inside the peppers. I had a bowl of little plum tomatoes that I got in the market so these got sliced in half and put inside the peppers and around them.

Season with salt & pepper, chopped fresh basil (I used up one of those living pots of herbs on the window sill). Drizzle your favourite olive oil or rapeseed oil over the peppers and put into a moderately hot oven - 200C for about 60-75 minutes depending how cooked you like the final result.

Once cooled you can serve the peppers as a side dish especially lovely with a salad and BBQ or grilled meat.

A benefit of being a true foodie is appreciating the range of different products that go into one of my recipes: Rapeseed oil from the Borders, garlic from the Isle of Wight, thyme from Greece, Olive oil from Italy, salt from the Himalayas, basil from my window sill and more!

I am entering this post into the monthly blog round up 'Eat Your Veg' run jointly by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle from UtterlyScrummy.

and Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Helen of Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla from FabFood4All