Roasted Pepper Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Birthday Week begins!  My mom and I have birthdays that are 5 days apart.  We have always ended up celebrating for an entire week.  Then my nephew, Cole, was born in between our birthdays.  This has only increased our celebration activities.  We may need to think about expanding to 2 weeks.  Needless to say, this is one of my favorite times of the year.  Birthday celebrations and fall activities everywhere!

I started out the week by cooking dinner for my mom on Sunday.  Anyone celebrating their birthday gets to pick their birthday meal.  My mom decided to leave it up to me to try out some new recipes.  It was fun to look through the stack trying to figure out what she would enjoy.  It is so much fun to cook for other people.

I decided to go with the following:
pulled chicken sandwiches
 Roasted Pepper Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Rosemary potatoes
Pumpkin Cheesecake

The pulled chicken sandwiches is one of my mom's recipes.  It is so good, I'll have to share it at some point.  My sister prepared this dish, but had a minor mishap before the party began.  A dish fell and shattered into the salad.  So she ended up picking up some barbeque down the street.

Look for the rosemary potatoes and pumpkin cheesecake posts under the Recipe Rankings tab.

I pulled the Roasted Pepper Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette from a recent Taste of Home magazine.  It is such a pretty dish with all of the different colors.  It was very good and I'm sure I'll be making it again.  It is a perfect summer dish while the peppers are plentiful.

I did learn a lesson concerning roasting peppers.  Never try to roast them in a hurry.  I took many of them out of the oven too soon.  This made pulling off the skins so much harder...obviously.  So make sure you take the time and roast them long enough.

I used the leftovers on top of speghetti with some sliced sausage.  Obviously you could use chicken or no meat.  I'm changing the ranking to 3 stars because I don't think I'll get it made too often.  Peppers can be too pricey other times of the year.

Ingredients:
2 each large sweet yellow, red, and green peppers
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
6 Tbsp. olive oil
3 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. each minced fresh oregano, rosemary, basil and parsley
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 carton (8oz) fresh mozzarella cheese pearls
5 fresh basil leaves

Directions:
1. Broil peppers 4 in. from the heat until skins blister (about 5 minutes).  Let cook and peel off skins.  Cut into thin strips. Place in bowl with onion.
2. in small bowl, mix oil, vinegar, herbs, garlic, garlic powder, cayenne, pepper and salt; pour over pepper mixture and toss to coat.  Cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.
3.  Before serving, allow peppers to come to room temperature.  Place on a serving plate; top with tomatoes, cheese and basil.