Much to my husband’s dismay, these peppers contain no meat and were not particularly filling. So if you have a husband or an appetite, you might want to double the recipe.
As you might guess, the recipe begins by gutting 4 peppers (can be any color) and steaming them in 1 inch of water for 5-8 minutes.
Meanwhile, saute 1 small chopped onion and 2 cloves of minced garlic in a big pan. Set the peppers aside when done. To the onion and garlic, add 1 large heirloom tomato, 1 seeded jalapeno (minced), 2 T fresh parsley, and a dash each of oregano, cumin, salt, and a bay leaf.
Cook for 5 minutes, then add 2 C corn (about 2 ears) and 1 can of black beans. Simmer 10 minutes. Then, stuff the peppers with the mixture, top with cheese, and cook for 20 minutes or so at 350 F.
The verdict: As you can guess, the husband would have liked chicken in it. I think it’s a good recipe but I would have personally upped the spices.
I just tried this recipe tonight, although I’m sure there comes a time in every alteration where it is no longer “the” recipe. At any rate, every other Tues. eve. is when I pick up my box of veggies from my CSA, so I never know what I’ll be making that night. In my case, having no black beans and having already been delayed in cooking time from stopping to pick up my farm share, I used great northern beans and canned tomatoes I had on hand instead of fresh ones (I know, I’m a bad person for buying them at the store). I had no corn, which I’m sure would have been delicious, but I was not about to take the car out for a 4- to 6-mile round trip to the supermarket just for that. At any rate, I had 2 bell peppers left from the past farm share I really needed to use up and new ones besides. The recipe was absolutely fabulous. Up the spices? Well, perhaps, unlike in my case, your expert pepper-grower coworker had not left a basket of free homegrown hot peppers for the taking. One of his equaled about a half dozen that you might purchase in a supermarket. Whoooosh. I told him that just one made the steam come out my ears as in a cartoon–in a good way! Two stuffed peppers plus a spoonful of extra filling in the pan more than filled me–I’m a single woman. Also, evidently, I’m in an unusual category for not being disappointed that a meal has no meat.