Stuffed Peppers

Ah...so many ideas on what to stuff in bell peppers......

Stuffed summer squash or stuffed eggplant or stuffed peppers are a great thing to make the when the garden produces faster than we can eat it. Stuffed peppers are good even when the peppers come from the grocery store, as these did. I bought yellow and red peppers because they are so pretty and were on sale. They weren't from my garden or even from a Farmer's market this time...but they are from the USA.

If the peppers are smallish I think they look great when just the tops are cut off and then they are stuffed. But, since these were largish, I cut them in half and parboiled them for just a couple minutes. I don't like the peppers too soft, so it was a couple minute parboil.

My very favorite filling is out of the book, Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. It's a recipe for a stuffed vegetable filling with spinach and artichoke hearts. I make it with a few variations, depending on what I am stuffing and what I have for filling. I made it pretty true to the original recipe this time. I always omit the pecans...for obvious allergy reasons.
This is a good dinner on its own since it is filling, but we had it with some grilled burgers and grilled potatoes on the night Paul returned from his most recent Asian excursion. I cooked them on the grill this time (which was a first) and they were yummy.

The Moosewood recipe:
10 oz fresh spinach, steamed (I used thawed frozen)
4 oz cream cheese at room temp
14 oz can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped
1/2 c grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 c minced scallions
1/2 c toasted pecans (omitted, as noted above)

Stuff the vegetables and bake covered at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so. May want to add water to the bottom of the pan before covering to help steam the vegetables (I don't do this if I parboil the peppers).

The peppers are a great lighter dinner on their own. That's the way we usually have had them...but it was fun to have them as part of this dinner too.


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