From time to time, I like to make stuffed peppers. They're a really fun food: they're fun to make and to eat, and I've always loved food that comes in a type of packaging. I think they are an old standard you can really play with (ingredient wise) as long as you keep the two core components: a pepper and some stuffing. As I don't make them too often, I've yet to perfect the recipe. I'm sure that everyone has either their own recipe/opinions, I thought I would present my current recipe for suggestions.
I also have to apologize for the ambiguous measurements. I'm a bit of a kitchen cowboy, and I'm writing down the recipe after-the-fact.
Vegetarian (did I mention they are vegetarian?) Stuffed Peppers:
4 Large green bell peppers
2-3 cups rice (depends on how much you like rice; I love it)
1 can diced tomatos (flavored optional)
1 can black beans
1/2 cup salsa
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
dash crushed red peppers
garlic powder TT (I use about 1/4t)
Chipotle Tobasco TT
salt & pepper TT
1. make rice according to directions. Meanwhile, cut caps off peppers and clean out seeds, including from the caps!
2. mix about 1c. of cooked rice with can of tomatos, beans, 1/4 c. cheese and 1/4 c. salsa. Add red pepper, garlic powder,Chipotle tobasco, salt and pepper to taste.
3. Put remaining rice into baking dish, creating nests for peppers (if you have any filling left after stuffing peppers, mix in with this rice). Stuff peppers and place in rice. Cover with remaining cheese. Put caps on peppers (will seal them to a degree). Distribute rest of salsa over rice, as well as more Chipotle Tobasco to taste. Lightly drizzle olive oil (or I guess, lamp oil, according to an earlier post) over the lot to prevent drying out.
4. Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 hour (I did about 35 minutes and they could have used more) or until peppers are tender.
Remove and enjoy with a good beer or cheap white table wine (as we did in my case). I serve them whole, but cut one open for a better picture of the innards.
Heh, innards.
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2 comments:
I like the recipe. I have to admit, I always love stuffed peppers, but never know how to cook them properly. This is a great start.
I have a challenge for all of you out there: what if we could make these without cooking the rice ahead of time. They are in the oven for an hour; that's plenty of time for rice cookage. Maybe pour water in the pepper shell with the uncooked rice?
Thoughts?
I completely agree with the uncooked rice thing. It definitely adds extra time and energy even if using a rice cooker (and not to mention extra dishes to clean!). I think one potential problem would be that a lot of the water would evaporate, so you might need to use a bit more than you would normally use in making the rice.
Perhaps if you added a broth (veggie, or otherwise) to the rice in the dish, you could attempt to make something resemling an oven risotto. I might try this next time.
Also, I would definitely add onion to the mixture. I love onion. And beer. I like beer, too.
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