I spent a delicious day with my friend Karen from Nutrilicious tasting and talking to some of the best fruit and veggie producers from across the country at the Canadian Producers Marketing Association otherwise known as the CPMA Trade Show. I came home with all of my favourites; cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, lettuces, potatoes...Gordy kept asking me where is all the real food, this is it, the real thing, all natural and all fresh. The closest I came to a treat was some apple chips.
I do love these cute mini peppers, grown in Leamington Ontario at Pure Flavor's 25-acre greenhouse. I drizzled them with olive oil, added whole pieces of garlic, a handful of fresh herbs and roasted them until charred. For a little pepper they pack a lot of flavour. We ate them with a crusty baguette, a hunk of feta and a glass of wine, and now these little sweet peppers are all gone.
My box of goodies from Pure Flavour!
Roasted Mini Peppers and Potatoes with Fresh Thyme, Rosemary and Garlic
This recipe will make enough to serve 6 as an appetizer.
Ingredients
2 lbs mini bell peppers
1 lb mini yukon gold potatoes
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more if needed
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 springs of fresh thyme
6 cloves fresh garlic, (I like to leave the garlic whole and with the skins still on, just smash with the back of a knife, this way you can squeeze the garlic out of the skins and toss with the roasted peppers when done).
kosher salt to taste
fresh ground pepper
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, (this will make for an easy clean up). One baking sheet will be for the peppers and the other for the potatoes. Cut larger mini peppers in half, leaving the smaller ones whole. Arrange peppers on cookie sheet. Cut potatoes in half and arrange on the second cookie sheet.
3. Add 3 cloves of the smashed garlic to each cookie sheet.
4. Drizzle both of the cookie sheets with oil, add rosemary, thyme and toss everything until nicely coated. You will now have two cookies sheets ready to go in the oven.
5. Bake the peppers for 25 to 35 minutes, or until just slightly charred.
6. Bake the potatoes for 35 -45 minutes or until fork tender.
7. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper
8. Serve with a crusty baguette.
Cooks Notes:
I added a few cherry tomatoes to baking sheet of my potatoes just because I had some around.
You could also crumble chèvre or feta cheese on top of the peppers.