Roasted Banana Peppers

Sometimes my garden overproduces at the most opportune time. Recently guests came up to the ranch for a visit at an hour which isn’t quite lunch, while being too early for dinner. The time of day where one begins to feel peckish. what to do? what to do?. I went a bit spanish; using the abundance of banana peppers to create a delicious and simple addition to afternoon tapas.

Roasted Banana Peppers
as many banana peppers and other fresh (smallish) peppers you can gather
olive oil
sea salt
sherry vinegar

Preheat oven to 400F. Place peppers in large shallow pan. Lightly coat in olive oil. Roast until the peppers begin to blister and soften. Remove from oven and immediately splash with sherry vinegar. Sprinkle with sea salt.
Serve warm or room temperature
simple
delicious

Browned Butter Berry Bars

This weekend past, we took a long drive with no real agenda. Except to explore. As we drove north i began to obsess. A cookbook was given to me about a year ago called Big Sur Bakery. While getting lost in its pages, I fell in love with the place, and began imagining each bite. While big sur is coastal, we were on an inland route a little jot west, wasn’t too far off course.
{it wasn’t like we had anywhere to be}
An hour, and ten white knuckles later, we arrived in Big Sur. Unfortunately, the bakery was hosting a wedding; which meant, it was closed. Double dip dang-nabbit ugh. Instead, we stopped at a half bad restaurant for nourishment not enjoyment planning our return. When we got home, I promptly made these. These are a variation of the brown butter rhubarb bars from The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook using berries we picked that morning.

Brown Butter Berry Bars
adapted from the big sur bakery cookbook

jam
2 cups blackberries and mulberries {or berries of your choice}
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup sugar
place all ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan. cook on low heat until it begins to bubble and thicken. watch closely and cook until it is thick and jammy. set aside to cool

crust
1 cup unsalted butter–melted
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 cups flour{whole wheat or all-purpose}
whisk together the flour, powdered sugar and salt. stir in butter. press into a 9″x 13″ pan. bake in a 375^ oven until it just begins to brown(15-18 minutes). remove from oven and allow to cool.

brown butter filling
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup + 2 Tbs unsalted butter
3/4 cup + 2 Tbs flour {whole wheat or all purpose}
1 teaspoon vanilla
place the butter in a saucepan and cook on low heat until it becomes brown and nutty, careful not to burn. whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, lemon zest, lemon juice, flour and vanilla. carefully stir in the browned butter.

to assemble
spread about half of the browned butter mixture on the prepared crust. dollop about 3/4 of the jam on top. spread the remaining browned butter filling and then dollop the remaining jam. bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges just begin to turn brown. do not overbake, (allowing the filling to souffle). allow to cool before cutting into bars.
delicious room temperature or directly from refrigerator.