Pepper Gratin

When you really want a great vegetable side dish, but time is at a premium, trust your oven! It can cook your vegetables while you attend to the other elements of the meal. This recipe is for just that purpose: all you have to do is carefully layer some peppers and breadcrumbs, perhaps alternating the layers with some other ingredient to your taste like onions, capers and olives, and bake the whole thing in the oven! In forty minutes you will have a fragrant and irresistible gratin, and meanwhile you have been laying the table or otherwise preparing everything for the arrival of your guests.

Wash and clean the peppers then cut them into chunks. Prepare all the ingredients, then proceed by making layers in an ovenproof dish: peppers, some sliced onion, breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic, some olives or capers, peppers again and so on. Finish with plenty of breadcrumbs and finally drizzle over with some extra virgin olive oil. Bake at 200 °C for 40 minutes.