Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.

This is not romesco. The Catalonians made their classic sauce by grinding tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and almonds with dried sweet ñora peppers. Or at least some of them did. Others added bread, used filberts instead of walnuts or sunflower oil in place of the olive. Some added hard-boiled eggs, and there’s a report of one version that used almond biscotti.

But this romesco-adjacent sauce works just like its inspiration. Serve it alongside fish, meat, or almost any vegetable, raw, boiled, or roasted. Spread it on a sandwich or dip a chip in it. Stir a big spoonful into a bowl of pasta, rice, or beans. Or just eat it with a spoon.

While you can buy roasted peppers in a jar, cooking them yourself is both cheaper and yields better flavor. I’ve roasted hundreds of red bell peppers, cooking them until the skins turn black, then letting them cool before peeling and seeding. But I’ve learned that I get the same results if I don’t cook them so long and leave the skins on. They get blitzed in the food processor, anyway. Easiest of all to use are the bags of small sweet peppers, typically a mix of red, yellow and orange, since the seed cores are small and can be left intact.

Peanut “Romesco”

1 pound small sweet peppers

1 cup salted peanuts

3 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt to taste*

1 teaspoon smoked paprika, optional

*The peanuts add salt, so taste and adjust accordingly.

Coat a heavy skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil, add the peppers and roast them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until they’re just beginning to brown. Remove and let cool slightly, then pull off the stems.

Blitz the peanuts and garlic in the food processor for a minute or so. You want a texture similar to fine gravel, not peanut butter. Add the destemmed peppers, vinegar, olive oil and paprika. Blitz for another minute or so, then taste and add salt if needed. Refrigerate for up to a week.