Sweet and Spicy Roasted Pepper Sauce

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Pepper Sauce

I started by selecting some delicious peppers. Really, any pepper will do. I picked out a poblano, two jalapeños, and two sweet banana peppers. I roasted the peppers on foil on a cookie sheet for about 30 minutes at 450 degrees. The foil saves you a great deal of scrubbing later. 

After the skins have darkened and bubbled, you will want to sweat the peppers by placing them in an airtight bowl with a lid for about 20 minutes. 

Then you peel the skins and remove the seeds and stems.

I blended all the peppers in a blender. 

After the peppers were sufficiently pureed, I added some flavors that I thought would enhance the flavors of the peppers. 

Olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Just add each one to taste. 

A little bit of this sauce goes a long way. It would be good on pasta, vegetables, fish, or chicken. 

A simple way to add a lot of flavor. 

Goes great on sweet potatoes! 

Salmon in Curry yogurt sauce

Some sort of fish dish

I'm not sure what to call this dish, so I will just describe it. I was inspired by a really good Thai dish I had in Portland last week. It was Panang Curry with Tofu and Pumpkin. I wanted to see if I could do something similar but simpler.

I began by preping some salmon for a skillet. I put lemon juice, salt, garlic powder,  and dill on the salmon and let it sit while I peeled and sliced a butter nut squash.

I sprayed a cookie sheet with olive oil spray and placed the squash chunks on it along with a couple whole jalapeños. I put them in a preheated 425 degree oven. I usually roast vegetables for about 20 minutes or so until fork tender.

In the mean time, I sprayed a skillet with olive oil spray and placed the salmon skin side down in the skillet. I put a lid on the skillet so the salmon cooks more evenly. This needs to cook until it flakes with a fork and the meat is a lighter pink.

The sauce was a total improv. I don't know how to make panang curry, and I didn't have any coconut milk which is very popular in Thai curries. What I did have was a 6 oz tub of plain greek yogurt. One of my favorite things. I surveyed my spice situation and pulled out some salt, black pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and curry powder. I don't measure anything. I just season and taste. I mixed all of the spices with the yogurt. But it really needed something. I looked in the refrigerator for hot sauce and found some buffalo wing sauce. I threw a little in, and the flavor combo was awesome.

When the jalapeños were sufficiently roasted, I chopped those up seeds and all and added them to the yogurt sauce. Once the squash was fork tender, I stirred in a few chucks of that to the sauce.

This is where the magic happened. My fish was cooked through, and there was a lot of fish oil in the pan. I got the idea to thin my yogurt sauce with the fish oil by putting everything together in the same pan. First, I removed the skin from the salmon and cut the meat into chunks. I put everything together in the skillet and let it heat through.

Served it over rice. It was amazing!