I posted something about this over the weekend when I made it, but I thought it would be good to tell you a little more here.
For the first time, I made stuffed peppers. It’s indicative of the fact that I eat a lot of things these days that I never would have eaten years ago. I also like trying to cook things I’ve never cooked before. For evidence of this, I refer you to the Recipes! section of this blog.
This is really more of a hodge-podge of things that were leftovers as opposed to any specific recipe. To keep the carb count lower, I substituted corn for the traditional rice. Made it a little watery, but the taste was grand. For the record, here’s what went into my stuffed peppers:
1/2 pound ground turkey
Leftover frozen corn (this is farm-fresh corn we purchased last summer and froze for later)
2 large green onions
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Oregano
Fresh sage
We took all this and mixed it in a bowl, then divided it in half and stuffed two bell peppers with the mixture.
Over the top, we poured a tomato-based sauce– this was made about a week earlier, from fresh and frozen vegetables, and helped along by a little chicken stock, a lot of basil, and some tomato paste.
Right before they went into the oven, they looked like this in my now indispensable iron skillet:
I cooked them for about 30 minutes at 375 degrees fahrenheit (190 degrees celsius). After 30 minutes, I took them out and added freshly-grated cheddar/gruyere cheese (from Trader Joe’s) to the top. Then they went back in for almost another 15 minutes.
When they were finished, they looked like this:
I can tell you with certainty that they tasted as good as they look.
I’ve made a lot of these recipes over the years, often in a kitchen much smaller and more sparse than the one I work in today. The thing I want to encourage you to do is:
1) Experiment on your own… find new recipes by just fooling around with flavors you like, and then try something new and see if you like that too. And…
2) Share your discoveries. Some of my favorite recipes are from ideas I got from someone else.
I hope you get a chance to experiment in the kitchen and discover something fun and different. Until then… enjoy the stuffed peppers!