Summer Mezes for Your Table: 1) Roasted Red Peppers in Olive Oil & Garlic/Közde Zeytinyağlı Sarımsaklı Kırmızı Biber |

Living in the village as we are, going to the market in either neighbouring Ayvacık or Küçükkuyu is one of the highlights of our week!

I love markets especially in summer time when the stalls are hard to resist with all the colourful fruit and veg. You have to go in order to stock up although nowadays it isn’t as dire as it used to be thanks to the enterprising kamyons or trucks that come round the villages once or twice a week. And of course if you really want to, you can go a bit further afield and find an array of the big supermarkets eg Migros, Tansaş, and even Kipa. I avoid those as much as possible.

So we are eating very, very healthily!

Here are two of our favourite summer mezes that I made recently and will be repeating on and off all summer long:

1)Roasted Red Peppers:

Take as many red peppers as you like – I used 7.

Here they are ready to go in the oven

You can compare my earlier – much earlier! – post with this one by clicking here. Similar but the method is slightly different.

This time I roasted them whole on a sheet of foil in the oven tray although a pyrex dish would probably have been more convenient. I set the oven to 180C/350F first. Drizzle some olive oil over them, season with salt and pepper, and add some sprigs of fresh rosemary and garlic cloves cut in half.
Cover with more foil and bake for 1 hour.
When time is up, remove from the oven and remove the foil. Cover immediately with a double layer of clingfilm and allow to cool for 15 minutes. (This is so that the peppers will sweat and be easier to peel).
When cooled, chop off the stem end and slit down one side to remove the seeds. Peel the skin away. Slice in lengths.
Arrange on a shallow dish and sprinkle a tbsp of vinegar, a little olive oil and salt, as well as more sliced garlic over the sliced red peppers.