Feta

Stuffed Bell Peppers for Two

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So,  you want to impress your date with some quality, home-cooking, but you normally judge a restaurant by the speed of its’ drive-thru? Well, not to worry, this recipe has what it takes to impress everyone, except maybe vegetarians (but more for you all later in the post!) Here’s the dish on this dish:

–  It has ingredients you either already have, or can easily get for not much money.

–  No special culinary skill required.

–  It looks and tastes awesome!

This actually is a derivation from a recipe from another great food blog, Simple Speedy Snacks.  She posted a tasty recipe for stuffed courgettes (zucchini) and I just subbed in the green bell peppers. Had to – the store was totally courgette-less. Oh, yes. For vegetarians, SSS has vegetable-stuffed courgette info on the same post.

My recipe serves two.   Three’s a crowd, remember?

Ingredients:

2 good sized bell peppers. Try to use symmetrical ones with large internal cavities.

8 oz. ground sausage. I used regular pork sausage, but chorizo, beef or lamb would work, too.

4 oz. diced tomatoes. Remeber the can in the back of your pantry? The one you bought for that chili recipe you never made? Yeah, use that one! Just strain it first.

4 oz. crumbled Feta cheese.

That’s it. See?  Easy Peasy!!

Here’s what you do:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Cook your sausage in a large sauce pan over medium high heat. Once fully cooked, use a slotted spoon to transfer the sausage to a bowl, draining as much excess grease back into the pan as you do this.

Cut the lid off your bell peppers, but don’t throw them away.

Carefully remove the seed pod. Trim the white pulp, too, but please – do not cut a hole in the bell itself. You don’t want anything to leak!

Now the good part – the “fill up.”

Using a large spoon for the sausage and Feta, and a smaller spoon for the diced tomatoes, start layering the cheese, sausage and tomato into the hollowed out bell pepper as follows:

Cheese (2 spoonfulls)

Sausage (2)

Tomatoe (1)

Repeat until the pepper is full. Now matter where you are in the list, make Feta your topmost layer.

Put the stuffed peppers in a casserole dish or pan and recover with the lids you saved. You did save them, didn’t you? If not, that’s okay, but they do help the cooking process.

Add a half cup of water to the casserole dish, then cover with either the appropriate glass lid or aluminum foil. Steam the peppers in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.

Uncover, check to make sure there is still a little water left in the dish (add a little bit if needed) then continue steaming, uncovered, for 20 more minutes.

Check the peppers to see if the skin has started to wrinkle. That’s the sign that the pepper is tender enough for dinner!

Plate them up and enjoy dinner! This works awesome with a side of cous cous and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Now as for any leftover cooked sausage or tomato? They make a great filler for an omelet. Top with a little Feta and some chopped spinach. I’m hungry just thinking about it!

Happy eating! And good luck on that date!

 

 

 

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