The REAL stuffed peppers!

Everybody has to have "A Katie" in their life. My friend Katie is the most joyful, patient and hysterical person I know--no offense to the rest of you but meet Katie and you'll know what I mean! These are her and her home-chef husband, Glenn, famous stuffed peppers. These are what I dreamt about --and wrote about in a previous post. She's very thorough!! Now I am on a search for Italian Peppers.... YUM!

From Katie & Glenn...


The Italian Pepper is a delightful mild pepper that can be used in a ga-zillion ways. It can be chopped and tossed in salads, omelets, stir fry’s etc. It tastes much like a green pepper, but not as strong, so it never overpowers its surroundings. We grow these in our garden as they are super easy, and prolific too…we get at least 20 peppers off this one little plant each season. It’s a real go-getter!

Then there is me…I LOVE chile rellenos but have always been way to overwhelmed by the recipes I come across to ever even try to make them myself. So my husband got crazy one day and created this one step, super easy, no fuss, stuffed pepper and voila, it’s now a mainstay in our household!! AND my relleno craving is completely satisfied! In fact, I think it’s way better than many chile rellenos I’ve had at restaurants (bar the Tower Café’s…they are kick-bum... can you tell I have small kids!)

The things I LOVE about the recipe is its versatility (you can stuff it with ANYTHING) and you don’t have to do the “roast/put in paper bag/peel skin off” thing. You just stuff it, grill it and enjoy it!! I also love the texture of this grilled pepper…it doesn’t get mushy, it softens, but still has a little crunch to it…it’s fabulous!!

Enough said already, here is a very simple recipe for you all to try. It goes like this:

Ingredients:

Italian Peppers (a mild pepper, 1 per person)

Cheese – Any cheese works great…whatever is in your fridge at the time…combine cheeses if you like…the possibilities are endless here. Each pepper can hold about one ‘cheese stick’ worth depending on the size of the pepper of course. Don’t bother grating the cheese, just cut into pieces that will fit in your pepper. Some suggestions that we have used are : aged white cheddar, feta, blue cheese, mozzarella, sharp cheddar. All of them were fabulous. It is truly totally up to your taste buds to choose.

Heat – If you like a little heat, Tobasco or any other liquid heat that you have.

Olive Oil – A dab for each pepper

Here’s what you do:

Prepare the pepper:

Wash and dry the peppers.

Cut around the stem of the pepper in a circle to remove the top (and set aside as we replace it later)

Gently remove the pulp and seeds (your finger should be able to get the pulp out, then give it a few good shakes to get the seeds out. You don’t have to get it perfectly cleaned out since this is not a hot pepper, the seeds are also mild…so just get most of them out and call it good!!

Stuff it:
Gently stuff the pepper with cheese. Now shake a little hot sauce in there to taste. (I give about 3 to 4 shakes of Tabasco which gives it a little kick without having to call the fire department.
Replace the top of the pepper so when the cheese begins to melt it doesn’t ooze out. (You can use a toothpick to hold it in there if you need to.)

Rub the outside of the pepper with a dab of olive oil to prepare it for the grill.

Grill it:

Grill it along with your meat/fish/veggies turning once or twice, until it is lightly charred and the cheese is melted. It usually takes about 10 –15 minutes. (We put ours on roasting rack that holds the pepper slightly upright to keep the cheese in, but you can also just lay it flat on the grill). Remove it from the heat and let it ‘stand’ on a rack for a few minutes to cool.

Serve it:
You know the rest!! Serve it with any main dish…it’s a gorgeous addition to any meat, fish, or rice dish.