I’m not a big raw bell pepper fan, but the smoky sweetness of a roasted pepper always appeals to me.
Over the years I’ve roasted peppers many different ways—under the broiler, mostly, and sometimes over a gas flame or charcoal grill. But my favorite way is roasting in a covered gas grill. Not only is this method simple and hands-off, but it also yields a roasted pepper that’s easier to peel, because the skin really blisters and pops off, rather than getting too cooked and sticking to the pepper.
The convected heat in a hot gas grill quickly surrounds the pepper on all sides and blackens it in less than 10 minutes. (A couple of flips with the tongs helps.) I take the peppers out when they’re mostly, but not completely, blackened so that they don’t overcook.
Sometimes it’s the tiny little things in life that bring the most joy.
I hate 3:00 p.m. on a school day. It means I’m a failure. Once
again, I’ve failed to come up with a “healthy snack” for my ravenous
Varsity Cheerleader. Our routine was to just go over to Chipotle which
wasn’t really great because those burritos, even though they were
pretty clean, would stuff her until around 5:30, at which time, I’ve
lost the will to live because I’m tired and I don’t want to come up
with any kind of dinner, so she’s left to forage which makes me feel
like an even worse failure. 
All my knowledge of cooking comes from a lifetime in the kitchen with family. My grandmother, my mother, my father, my chef friends, my farmer friends, you name it – if I can glean something from them I will.
Now, I generally steer clear of plastic cooking tools that look like the crap sold on tv at 3:00 am. It dices! It slices! Hey, guess what? I do too! But a client of mine had ripped a page from her Williams Sonoma catalog with a picture of a vegetable extruder and I was intrigued. I did some investigating and found one a little cheaper on Amazon made by Bitoni with the magic words… lifetime replacement warranty. Now we’re talkin’.