Baked and Stuffed Peppers
I think I’ve mentioned before that we just don’t really care for stuffed peppers. It always seems like we end up with too much pepper and too little filling. The pepper overshadows anything you put inside and never seems to cook quite enough for my tastes. Yet despite all of this, I still love the idea of a stuffed pepper recipe and I’ll try just about any recipe I find that sounds appetizing.
Enter this recipe from Martha Stewart. Please. Go look at that photo. Isn’t that gorgeous? The way those tomatoes set there, nestled in the pepper, with the little bits of cheese and basil…I’m salivating just looking at that photo. So we tried again to love a stuffed pepper recipe. Did we succeed?
- 2 bell peppers
- 6 oz mini-cherry tomatoes
- 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled
- 1 tsp fresh thyme minced
- A handful of basil leaves, cut in pieces
- Salt and pepper
- 1Tbsp olive oil
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Carefully cut the peppers in half lengthwise.
- Remove the ribs and seeds with a small paring knife.
- Set the peppers in a shallow baking dish.
- In a medium bowl, mix the cherry tomatoes, feta, thyme, basil, and salt, and pepper to taste.
- Fill each pepper with the tomato mixture.
- Drizzle the peppers with olive oil.
- Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes, or until a few of the tomatoes have burst and the cheese starts to brown.
- Serve.
A pepper alone
Our Notes: I’ll repeat my mild annoyance with stuffed peppers with this dish as well. There was a lot of pepper per tomato mixture. However, that tomato mixture was fantastic. It was very much like a modified caprese salad. The tomatoes were soft and melted in your mouth and the feta cheese provided a creamy tang to the dish. Next time I will use smaller peppers and probably fill them a bit fuller. The peppers did have a lot of liquid that ended up among the filling so when serving, we lifted each pepper on a flipper and gently tilted it to drain the rather flavorless pepper water. This would be excellent as a topping for crusty bread.
What if you were to pat dry the peppers and tomatoes just before putting them in the dish? Would that alleviate some of the excess water? Also, I think just a few bacon crumbles or panchetta would really make this dish pop.
I agree with the bacon and pancetta. Absolutely! I did dry the peppers pretty well and they still leaked a lot. I think maybe cooking the peppers for 10 minutes first, then draining them, and then stuffing them would be a good idea.
Those peppers look amazing, and honestly, I can’t see a huge problem with the pepper to filling ratio, but I like red and yellow peppers (green peppers are a whole ‘nother story!), and I LOVE stuffed peppers. BUT… I do wonder why they were cut from top to bottom instead of just taking the tops off to create a big “bowl” with the whole pepper? Just curious. Also, maybe choosing squatter, wider peppers might give you a better pepper/filling balance (wider space to fill).
Some kind of grain might help alleviate the excess water. Rice (white is always better, trust me), quinoa, bulgur wheat, couscous… Tomatoes do release a lot of water when cooked too, that probably increased the H2O.
I really like this method of cutting as opposed to taking the tops off. This way lets more of the filling be exposed to the heat and so the filling caramelizes more. In addition, the peppers sit very nicely in the pan and don’t wiggle around or tip over.
I do agree that a grain of some sort would probably soak up the water and since the water would be pepper flavored, this would be excellent.
Made this for dinner tonight adding a tiny tiny bit of bacon. There wasn’t much residual pepper water. What there was, we sopped up with a baguette. As for adding a grain, what about serving with risotto?
[...] some acompanying personal (and always charming) narrative. See, for example, today’s post: Baked and Stuffed Peppers. And, try to resist Watermelon Marninated Salmon. Black Beans with Rosemary and Feta Cheese. [...]
Do you like spicy peppers? Padrons would be a fun alternative, though their heat may mask a sweet filling and mild cheese.
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I agree with you on this. I have found that if I roast my peppers prior to stuffing them and baking them, there is a better flavor. But still, I generally would rather just eat the stuffing! The stuffing for this one looks so good!
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