Hello everyone, Jess here. Happy Sunday!
Tonight was the Buck’s turn to come to our house for Sunday dinner (is it too corny to say “the Bucks stop here”? Probably.
At any rate, I had set aside some of the CSA peppers for dinner tonight. I just love using peppers for stuffing. I feel like anytime you can house one veggie in another, it’s a pretty sweet scenario. Some people don’t like the crunchiness that can come with a stuffed pepper, but I find that if you give the halved and seeded peppers a very quick trip through boiling water (3 minutes is plenty, especially for farm peppers that don’t have that industrial strength skin to contend with) it makes a big difference in the texture of the final product without a significant compromise in nutritional content. Sometimes I’ll boil my peppers, sometimes I won’t, depending on the texture I’m going for related to the stuffing, the amount of time I have, and well, frankly, my mood. (You may recall these Quinoa stuffed peppers from last summer where I opted to skip the boil and keep things crunchy.)
Please forgive my lack of photos tonight, my son was periodically commandeering my phone/camera to play Pokemon (yes, we are wrapped in the Pokemon craze). You’ll have to imagine the halved peppers traveling through a pot of boiling water for a few moments before being run under a cool sink faucet to stop the cooking process.
Here you can see my salad onions and minced garlic on the griddle with Springdell ground beef waiting on the sideline (one of my guests can’t have onions, so I made a separate batch. If you don’t have such issues, the onion, garlic and ground beef can be cooked together.
Once your meat and veggies are browned and softened and mixed and ready to go, you can stuff your peppers and place them on a rimmed baking sheet at 375 for 20 minutes. (A little shredded cheese on top is always a hit).
I made two versions of peppers tonight, stuffed bell peppers and stuffed Cubanelles, some from the farm and some from the garden.
Pick a meat if you like, some veggies, a cheese, rice, quinoa or couscous, herbs and spices, an egg or two for binding, breadcrumbs or panko, and anything else you think might be tasty! Here are my two combinations this evening:
- 1 pound Springdell ground beef
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 2 salad onions (about 1/2 cup chopped)
- 4 basil leaves, sliced thinly
- 1/4 freshly grated parmagiano reggiano
- 1/4 cup mozzarella, plus more for topping
- 1 jar diced tomatoes (about 1 1/2 cups)
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, quinoa or couscous
- 1 beaten egg
Prepare peppers as indicated above.
In a medium skillet, add ground beef, onion and garlic and saute until meat is just browned and onions are tender. Add basil and tomatoes and stir and cook for about 2 minutes until incorporated. Remove from heat and immediately stir in the egg Parmagiano and half of the mozzarella cheese. Carefully spoon filling into your peppers and place on the baking sheet. Top with remaining cheese and bake in the oven for to minutes. (An optional step is to place the peppers under the broiler for one minute to brown the cheese a tiny bit).
Here is a stuffed bell and cubanelle pepper.
You’ll notice 2 types of fillings in these peppers. The second pepper had this filling combo:
- 1 cup diced cooked springdell ham steak
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 cups pearled couscous or rief
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese
Once your peppers are stuffed and topped with more cheese, give them a quick 20 minute trip through the oven at 375, until the filling is cooked through and the cheese is melted.
Both versions of these were a hit tonight!
What combinations do you like? Please let us know in the comments, the more ideas, the better!