Hot summer day -- time to roast peppers

Few foods are as tantalizing as roasted red peppers.  When peppers are in season this time of year and are inexpensive (I've gotten them recently as cheap as $1.35/lb), I fire up the grill and start roasting.

Get the grill very hot, and lay the peppers across.  Close the lid and let them char on one side, which will take a few minutes.  After the one side is charred, turn them, and char the other sides.  

   Once charred, place them in a covered pot or a paper grocery sack and let them steam and cool.  This will help the skins to detach from the flesh. 

Peel the charred skin from each pepper -- it will pretty much fall off.  Don't rinse the peppers under water, though you might be tempted.  The bits of clinging charred skin that you can't remove adds nice flavor. 

Pull our the stem and seed pod.

Pull apart the tender, roasted flesh.  You probably won't need a knife.

Let the sliced up peppers drain in a colander for an hour.

Dress the peppers with salt, black pepper, chopped garlic, parsley and ample extra virgin olive oil. 

If you make a large batch of peppers -- and I recommend that you do -- dress only what you'll eat now, and freeze the rest in zipper bags for later use.