BLISTERED PEPPERS WITH TOMATOES, MOZZARELLA & PESTO

Yesterday we cooked Pot Roast Chicken with Leeks & Winter Salsa Verde and like always I wanted to do a veg with it not carbs….I need to get into a bikini in a few days and the thought is terrifying….although not scary enough to actually diet! 

I decided to do these peppers as I love a stuffed pepper and I thought my Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers might be too much. These peppers can also be cooked on a barbecue which is perfect for summer but as it was pouring with rain, we did them in the oven.

Ingredients for 2 people:

2 large red or orange peppers
Olive oil
8 baby plum or pomodorini tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
A ball of buffalo mozzarella, torn into chunks
4 tbsp fresh pesto

Preheat the oven to 200C / 180C fan / gas mark 6.

Cut the peppers in half length ways and remove the seeds. It is much better to keep the stalks in the peppers but Pascal cut ours out - doh. 

Add the peppers to a dish and rub them all over with olive oil, garlic and seasoning.

If you are cooking inside put your extractor fan on as it will get smokey! Heat a frying pan until very hot. Put the halved peppers, cut edges side down, in the pan and sear them until they are blackened along the edges.

Then whip them out and put them back in the dish with the tomatoes and cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Alternatively you can grill them on a barbecue.

After 10 minutes arrange the tomatoes in the peppers, along with some ripped chunks of mozzarella. Season and then put back in the oven (or on the barbecue) until the mozzarella has started to melt (around 5 minutes).

Put a dollop of pesto in each pepper and serve.

These were absolutely delicious, so fresh and tasty. They make a great side but also would be delectable on their own with some good bread to mop everything up.