I have a container garden this year, and two or three of my peppers have ripened. So it’s time to eat them, which is exciting, because it’s the first time I’ve ever eaten food I’ve grown myself!
However, I’m not much of a cook, and I eat out a lot. So I’m not quite sure what to do with these guys. I’ve considered stuffing them, but I’ve never done that, so I’m not sure what it entails, what to stuff them with, or if they’re big enough. My peppers are longer, but much narrower than store-bought.
Anyway, I’m looking for suggestions, particularly suggestions that are easy and allow the peppers to really stand out (because I’m so proud of managing to not only not kill these plants, but to also get some fruit off of them).
Stuffing peppers isn’t so hard. If you have a recipe for meatballs you can use the same ingredients to stuff peppers. I make mine with ground beef, eggs, finely diced tomatoes, garlic, oregano, basil, parsley, grated mozzarella cheese, and some onions. I sweat the onions before adding them, because my wife isn’t a big fan of the crunch, (boo fricken hoo) but if not for that I’d just throw them in raw.
A lot of people will use bread crumbs or rice, but I don’t. Mix it all up, cut the peppers in half and remove the cores and seeds, fill 'em up, bake at 350 deg F until done, 20 or 30 minutes should do it.
Really, it’s just cooking, not rocket science. If you start out with good quality ingredients and think about what you like to eat, it goes together on its own.
They’re definitely bell peppers. Much wider than a chile, and very bell pepper “looking”. I wanted to grow Anaheims this year, but then one of my friends from NM brought me a gazillion pounds of canned and frozen green chiles and I didn’t need to.
Well, for simple, you can’t beat just eating them raw. Slice them into strips (throw out the seeds), and eat them with dip. Or top a salad with them. Personally, I wouldn’t cook mild peppers: You lose most of the texture, and the flavor is rather subtle.
We love stir fried slices of bell pepper, onion, pea pods and garlic. Throw in a little chicken or tofu if you want protein. Salt, pepper, and a little fresh basil thrown in right at the end make it yummers.
Or you could marinate the chicken in southwestern spices and lime juice and cut strips of onion and your peppers for fajitas.
Cube a bell pepper (yellow is best), two tomatoes, and a a cucumber. Mix in a bowl. Add fresh herbs or ground pepper. Dress (I like an olive oil-balsamic vinegar mixture). Sprinkle with kosher salt if you swing that way. Enjoy! I ate two of these a day, with a side of protein, for almost two years.
You can roast them (I do mine on the gas ring, but I’ve also seen people on TV programs use those miniature kitchen blow-torches.)
Hold the pepper over the flame until the skin is black. Then strip off the burnt skin and you have deliciously juicy pepper flesh.
Boil some spinach noodles, sprinkle with a little sesame oil, add chopped green onion and chopped peppers. You can also throw in chicken or tofu as mentioned by WhyNot.
Noodles and roasted peppers is one of my favourites, but you can also use them in salads. The taste is richer than that of raw peppers.
Roast them with red onions, butternut squash, sweet potato, garlic and courgette (zucchini)- use olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Just cut (and peel if necessary) the veggies, cut into similar sized chunks, and put in an oven proof dish, add a dash od oil, salt, black pepper and balsamic and roast gently until everything is tender. You can season with thyme or rosemary if you want. Serve with grilled (broiled) chicken breasts or pork chops (honey mustard marinade goes nicely).
Stirfry with bean sprouts, asparagus, pak choi, snow peas or any other vegetables of your choosing. Season with ginger, lemongrass, coriander (cilantro), spring onions (scallions), garlic and soy sauce. Serve with rice or noodles.
Add to chilli, lasagna, spaghetti bolognese, gazpacho or anywhere you would normally use red or green peppers.
Alas, Shoshana, I dislike raw tomatoes! I have heard rumours that I only hate them because store-bought ones are icky, but we’ll see when the ones in my garden ripen.
I usually make this dish with red, yellow and orange bell peppers, but you don’t need all three. Slice and saute the peppers and some minced garlic in olive oil, then toss them over pasta (penne is good) and add fresh basil and freshly grated parmesan cheese. Yummy.
I second roasting them before adding to any of the above. You can cut them in sections and stick them under the broiler until blackened, then skin and add to your dish.
Find a quick’n’easy recipe for ratatouille (saute some cubed eggplant, bell pepper, zucchini, onion, soft summer squash, in olive oil, maybe some fresh basil, a sprig of rosemary, freshly ground black pepper), and use them instead of green bell peppers.
My favorite restaurant from college, Murry’s, serves bell pepper rings. You know, like onion rings.
Slice them VERY thinly into rings, dip into tempura batter, and fry. Because they’re not naturally sweet to the degree that onions are, Murry’s dusts its bell-pepper rings with a little powdered sugar before serving (Don’t look at me that way - it sounds weird, but it really tastes great).
