Stuffed Peppers

Thursday night, I decided to experiment with Stuffed Peppers. This is something that I've always enjoyed eating when other have made them, but have never been able to successfully reproduce on my own. Something always seems to be off.

The inspiration for trying to make them this time was about half a pound of ground pork and some raw tomato sauce leftover from pizza night. It was taking up room in the fridge and needed to be eaten. Kimberly suggested the stuffed peppers, so I went for it.

The first step was buying 4 kind-of-large green peppers, with a wide base so they would stand up in the oven.

I consulted our Cook's Illustrated cookbook for their recipe; I mostly used it as a guide, but the 2 things I used directly were pre-steaming/boiling the peppers and cooking rice in the style of pasta (by this, I mean boiling it in an excessive amount of water then draining, rather than doing the 2-to-1 water to rice ration for 'perfect' rice cooking). Additionally, I was going to use bread crumbs as a binder for my stuffing, but decided to use the rice instead, at the suggestion of Kimberly and of the cookbook.

For the peppers, I cut off and cleaned the tops (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 an inch), then floated them in a big pot of boiling water until they started softening. Once I removed them from the water, I cooked the rice in the same water for about 15 minutes, until tender, then drained.

For the stuffing, I sauted the diced pepper tops, half a diced onion, and a couple cloves of diced garlic in a few drops of evoo and some s&p, until starting to soften . Then I added the previously cooked ground pork (maybe 1/2 #) and the left over raw tomato sauce ('crushed' can tomato, about 1/2 c). I let the mix warm through, then added the cooked rice and a few handfuls of shredded cheese (I think it was a 'Mexican' blend). I also added some spices - I think basil, thyme, and oregano, and a couple pinches of cayenne pepper for a kick. s&p to taste.

I stuffed each pepper until it was overflowing - it turns out that we had the perfect amount for the four peppers. I topped each with another pinch of cheese, then cooked in a 9x9 oven pan at 350 for about 30 minutes. We increased the heat to about 400 for the last ew minutes to try to crisp the top of the stuffing, but I don't know if this worked or not. (I've seen the stuffed peppers topped with the cut off tops, but I think I prefer the pepper tops cooked into the stuffing).

I have to say, they came out really good, surprisingly so. The stuffing was hot throughout and perfectly seasoned, something I'm not great at judging. The top of the stuffing and cheese was nice and browned, with the melted cheese in the middle just gooey enough. And the peppers were perfectly cooked - I was worried the pre-boil would make them too soft. We each had one and then split a third. This was a good amount. And it leaves one for lunch on Friday.

Notes and Next time

• I will definetly do the pre-boil on the peppers again.
  
• I also think that cooking the ground meat (maybe turkey, but the prok was good) with the pepper and onion might be nice; but it does seem like this is a good 'clean-out-the-fridge' meal, so that might not be an option.
  
• I think it was a good idea to NOT cook the tomato sauce before adding it to the stuffing mix.
• We could use any cheese, depending on what's left in the fridge.
  
• I really liked the rice in the stuffing, but it would be interesting to see how the bread crumbs work. Although, every time I've used bread crumbs in the past, it's turned out poorly. Maybe I shouldn't be so stubborn and just go with what works.

Ingredients/Recipe

• 1/2 # of ground pork/italian sausage
• 1/2 c rice, cooked in pasta style
  
• 4 green bell peppers, kind of large
  
• onion (half to whole, depending on size)
  
• couple cloves of garlic (to taste)
• raw tomato sauce (crushed from a can), maybe 1/2 c
• spices, to taste
• s&p, to taste
• cheese, shredded