I can't remember whether this was from the Summer Entertaining issue or the Vegetarian issue (it fits in both) but all of a sudden I was faced with pages and pages of ideas for stuffed peppers.
Now, I have held off making peppers in the past because I was under the impression that Mum did not like them. This I have recently discovered is only half true. Where she doesn't like them is raw, in salads or otherwise. Where she does like them is roasted. Armed with that information, and super happy because I LOVE peppers in all states of cooked myself (yay additional dinner possibilities!) I decided that tonight was the night and I was damn well going to make some stuffed, oven roasted peppers. [insert mental image of Mel Gibson yelling "Freedom!" and running across a battlefield in Scotland]
You will notice in these photos that only orange and yellow peppers are involved. That is because Mum and I both share a mutual hatred of green peppers and a mutual ardent dislike for red peppers. It always annoys me in the store when you want to buy a package of peppers that they will insist on including red and green. So I end up making my own package of orange and yellow, which is probably fresher anyway come to think of it. I just think the taste of orange and yellow is so much nicer, sweeter, etc., and also combines so much better with whatever you are making Green and red tend to overpower whatever dish they're in, and that's just selfish of them.
On the whole overpowering taste thing: don't even get me STARTED on how I feel about celery. It's a very, very, very long rant. I once mistakenly bought a $10 container of chopped celery from Eataly in New York because it was right next to the containers of green beans and I was in a rush and not looking and I just grabbed it and went. You can imagine my fury when I got home, all ready to make a yummy green bean salad and realised that not only had I bought CELERY I had BOUGHT CELERY FOR 10 DOLLARS. [insert minor kitchen tantrum here] I refused to eat it, because it's disgusting, but then not only had I completely wasted the money, I also had no green beans with which to make dinner. It was a rather dismal meal, if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure it involved a tomato and very little else.
Celery tangent, sorry. Back to my peppers.
Yesterday was one of those days that you expect to be warm because they are sunny and breezy and clear, yet you spend the majority of your time semi-freezing until you finally suck it up, accept it's not warm, and go put on another shirt. So I figured stuffed roasted peppers was a good halfway point between a warm and cold weather dish. You always see them in summer menus, but because they were hot-from-the-oven and stuffed with herbs they had definite warming properties.
Make sense? Good. Glad you're coming with me on this.
ROASTED PEPPERS STUFFED WITH TOMATOES, ROSEMARY, AND OLIVES
and
ROASTED PEPPERS STUFFED WITH BLACK BEANS AND BASIL
served with sausages, incidentally
It's actually pretty cool that I managed to make a massive dinner out of four small peppers, now that I'm looking through the photos. Huh. Next up, world peace.
INGREDIENTS
- 4 peppers (2 orange, 2 yellow in this case. If you want to use red and green go right ahead just don't tell me about it later)
- Handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
- 3/4 cup black olives
- 1 can black beans, drained
- fresh basil
- fresh rosemary
- sea salt and black pepper
- olive oil
- sausages, veggie or otherwise (optional)
Some people leave the stems on when they roast peppers and whilst there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I just think it's awkward for the person you're serving to have to cut it out at table later on. It seems just as easy for you to de-stem it with the rest of the prep, and I think it looks just as nice. My two cents, for what it's worth. Continuing . . .
De-stem the peppers and remove the seeds. Cut them down the middle and clean out all the white bits (whatever they are, I don't like them).
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| Comme ça. |
Fill four of the pepper halves with tomatoes, olives, and rosemary, distributing evenly, adding until all the ingredients are gone. (If you are OCD like me you will do two orange and two yellow. You can do whatever combination your particular neuroses will allow you to do.) Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
In a bowl, mix drained black beans with basil leaves, salt, and pepper. Spoon the beans into the rest of the peppers. (Use the most cup-like peppers for this, with the highest sides, so that the liquid doesn't go everywhere. But you probably already figured this out.)
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| Visual definition of a "cup-like pepper half." |
Arrange the peppers on foil lined baking sheets. I put the tomato/olive ones on one sheet with the sausages in the middle, drizzled with olive oil and a bit more rosemary, and the black bean ones on another. 
Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes until the peppers are soft and starting to collapse, and you can see that they are darkening at the bottom. This is one of those that the cooking time can vary depending on how squishy you want your peppers. If you like 'em REALLY done and squish, leave them in, if you like them still crunchy, pull them out. Your choice, dear reader.
When they are cooked to your liking, you know what to do. We served ours with bread and olive crackers (and more olives, natch) and cheese. But this would be a perfect opportunity for rice or couscous as well, depending on what strikes your fancy. I will say that to let that leftover olive oil and herb combo (a combo of awesome) go to waste is a crime the likes of which makes me shudder to the very depths of my soul.
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| The black bean ones were squishier, obvs, because of the liquid. And that was just fiiiiiine by me. |
So now that the world of peppers is open to me, expect to see them a lot more up here. I've been DYING to use them in a bunch of things and now I know I can I fully intend to. In other foods-I-thought-were-off-limits-but-now-aren't-anymore news, artichokes will make an appearance at some point soon, definitely at the birthday party if not before.
Contain yourselves, dear readers.
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