This isn't a very complicated story. It's mainly the tale of a small town (Sonoma). There are about 9,000 people in our town, pretty shocking when you've been living in LA for a loooooooong time, and were born and raised in San Francisco. Yes, quite a change. Everyone meets everyone sooner or later. I met Ron Mazetta of Mazetta Foods at our local hangout the Basque Boulangerie a number of years ago. We met while discussing food, mainly peperoncini, mainly his peperoncini which is the only brand I buy. He knows I cook Indian Food and I was explaining to him how many times I vamp on a vegetarian recipe cooking with whatever vegetables I find fresh at the Farmers Market. I wrote a post a few days ago where I made a squash and paneer cheese dish and substituted heirloom tomatoes for red bell peppers.
A couple of days later Ron handed me 2 bottles of his deli sliced roasted red peppers. "Try these," he said "next time you make that dish. Let me know how it works out."
So, I tried it. I made the dish again, this time leaving out the heirloom tomatoes and substituting Ron's roasted red deli sliced peppers for the red bell peppers.It worked like a charm, it was fast and flavorful.
I'd never tried it before, but it worked, and I'm going to be doing it again for sure. In fact I think I'll try it in a cauliflower dish this afternoon for lunch, swapping out the tomatoes for peppers.
Here's what I did with Rons' Peppers, without the paneer cheese