Food Friends: Home Cooking Made Easy
Sep 24, 2026 · 20 min · 10 segments
What do you make when you want to try something new but still want dinner to feel familiar? In this bite-sized episode, we share the best things we ate this week to inspire each other—and you! By…
Adriana AdarmeGuestSoniaHostCarrieHostSonia, what was your best bite this week?
My best bite was something very simple but very nostalgic, which is I made my grandmother's roasted marinated bell peppers.
So we're in this time of year where there's so many peppers still at the farmers market, and some of the farmers just have too many.
And so there's been this one stand that's selling, like, huge bags for five or six bucks, and I just can't pass that by.
But then once-
[laughs]
... you're home with a huge bag of peppers, you're like, "What do you do?" And then my grandmother's voice comes in.
She always had a very specific kind of marinated red pepper.
It was something that was kind of on her table year-round.
But all you do is you roast all your peppers, just put them on a sheet pan, no olive oil, no salt, no nothing.
Just roast them till their skin gets all brown and blackened.
Then I throw them into a bowl and cover the bowl so they can keep steaming.
You could also do this in a paper bag.
Some people like to use that method.
It's not that it's not fussy, but it's, it's kind of worth the effort when you're doing a big batch, 'cause then you have to peel all those peels that come off once they're steamed, and then you take out their seeds, and then you have this just beautiful pile of soft roasted red peppers to which all you need to do is add a little oil, a little vinegar, a little garlic, some black pepper, and stick it in a jar and put it in your fridge.
It lasts for weeks.
I've just been adding it onto, like, my snacky plate lunches, [laughs] or I'll do a piece of buttered sourdough bread toasted and add some marinated red peppers on top.
Jonathan has been loving them, too.
And every time I open the fridge and I see it there, I just think of her, and it's just been my best bite.
I mean, I think that's so beautiful, and I do think that there are these rituals, right, in the season.
Like you said, you can't pass up this giant bag of peppers.
And then you get home, and you're like, "Well, what am I gonna do with all this?" I think sticking them under the broiler, broil- blistering their skins, and then by steaming them, it does make those skins come off a lot easier.
I think I forgot that step when I did it last summer, and I was sort of like, "Ugh, this is taking forever." But really, if you give them, like, 20 minutes to steam, it really makes a difference.
And it's also one of those nice things that you could take to a friend's house if you were invited to someone's house for dinner.
Yeah, it's such a beautiful gift.
Sonia, what was your best bite this week?
My best bite was something very simple but very nostalgic, which is I made my grandmother's roasted marinated bell peppers.
So we're in this time of year where there's so many peppers still at the farmers market, and some of the farmers just have too many.
And so there's been this one stand that's selling, like, huge bags for five or six bucks, and I just can't pass that by.
But then once-
[laughs]
... you're home with a huge bag of peppers, you're like, "What do you do?" And then my grandmother's voice comes in.
She always had a very specific kind of marinated red pepper.
It was something that was kind of on her table year-round.
But all you do is you roast all your peppers, just put them on a sheet pan, no olive oil, no salt, no nothing.
Just roast them till their skin gets all brown and blackened.
Then I throw them into a bowl and cover the bowl so they can keep steaming.
You could also do this in a paper bag.
Some people like to use that method.
It's not that it's not fussy, but it's, it's kind of worth the effort when you're doing a big batch, 'cause then you have to peel all those peels that come off once they're steamed, and then you take out their seeds, and then you have this just beautiful pile of soft roasted red peppers to which all you need to do is add a little oil, a little vinegar, a little garlic, some black pepper, and stick it in a jar and put it in your fridge.
It lasts for weeks.
I've just been adding it onto, like, my snacky plate lunches, [laughs] or I'll do a piece of buttered sourdough bread toasted and add some marinated red peppers on top.
Jonathan has been loving them, too.
And every time I open the fridge and I see it there, I just think of her, and it's just been my best bite.
I mean, I think that's so beautiful, and I do think that there are these rituals, right, in the season.
Like you said, you can't pass up this giant bag of peppers.
And then you get home, and you're like, "Well, what am I gonna do with all this?" I think sticking them under the broiler, broil- blistering their skins, and then by steaming them, it does make those skins come off a lot easier.
I think I forgot that step when I did it last summer, and I was sort of like, "Ugh, this is taking forever." But really, if you give them, like, 20 minutes to steam, it really makes a difference.
And it's also one of those nice things that you could take to a friend's house if you were invited to someone's house for dinner.
Yeah, it's such a beautiful gift.
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