Roasted Red Peppers with Baguettes

French Entree

ROASTED RED PEPPERS WITH BAGUETTES

INGREDIENTS

4 red bell peppers
3 cloves garlic
1 cup olive oil
4 teaspoons herbes de Provence
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon mignonette pepper (or pepper)
2 baguettes

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Bake bell peppers in baking dish at 450 degrees. Turn every 8 minutes until skin blackens on all sides. Remove bell peppers and put in a paper lunch bag. Close lunch bag and let bell peppers sweat for an hour.. Do not, do not, for the love of God, Montressor, take them out early.

If you take the red bell peppers out of the bag early, you will find it so difficult to remove the skin from the bell peppers. You will be so frustrated by this that you will find yourself going constantly to the DMV just to be in a happier place. You will become a DMV groupie. Do not let this happen. Keep those bell peppers in the bag for the full hour.

While the bell peppers are steaming in the sack, mince garlic cloves. Put garlic, olive oil, herbes de Provence, salt, and pepper in mixing bowl and mix with fork.

Because you will need to peel those bell peppers. Cut the peppers into thin short strips. Spoon mix with liquid over baguette slices. Serve to adoring guests. Unappreciative guests get bonked over the head with a stale baguette. Sacré bleu

The bell pepper/olive oil mixed can also be used Provençale Roasted Red Pepper Soup.

TIDBITS

1) This was supposed to have been called Rhone River Roasted Red Pepper Soup for its alliterative beauty, but that title would have been too long to fit on one line.

2) And without beauty, what is there? Might as well sit in dentists’ waiting room.

3) Fortunately, beauty exists everywhere.

4) We can thank the French Revolution which erupted in 1789 to protect the rights of the common person and to protect beauty.
5) Many people died ensuring that Revolution would succeed. Generations of Frenchmen would go to war before France would finally get a stable republic.

6) With a stable republic, artists need no longer go to war. They become free to create beautiful works of art.

7) So after all that, how could I mar beauty with a two-line title?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.