Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese Sandwich

I'm from Minnesota, and there is a lot of ice-based recreation in my frozen homeland, but until this Tuesday, I had never seen the weird and wonderful sport that is synchronized ice skating.

Yep, this is a thing!

And when one goes to the free performance of The Synchroettes at the local ice arena, one needs sandwiches, so I tried out "Roasted Pepper and Goat Cheese Sandwiches" (NYT Cooking; subscription required).

I have previously roasted red peppers in the oven, but gave the recommended stovetop method a whirl, and it worked out well. Either way, you just have to be patient and give the peppers a really good char. It took about 15 minutes on the burner.

I felt very odd about putting them in a plastic bag to cool: hot food in a plastic bag? Does that degrade the plastic, which could then get on my food? I figured I would be removing the skin anyway, so I tried it (which a bag I was reusing from another purpose - you know a plastic bag is my nemesis!), but for my second pepper I placed it in a bowl with a plate on top, and that worked just as well.

To the sandwiches, I added fig spread to my backup dancers', and red onion spread to mine. I can't eat figs ever since I learned....

Should I tell you what I learned? Because then you, too, may never eat figs again.

You know what, I'm gonna tell you. You have a right to know.

FIGS CONTAIN DEAD WASPS. Ugh. Soooooo disgusting.

The arena was not exactly packed. People just don't know what they're missing.

Anyway, the sandwiches turned out well. They weren't amazing, but they were fine. And the Synchroettes were dreamy!

My small backup dancer loved it