Stuffed Red Peppers

Look, it’s something warm and hearty stuffed inside a red suit, just in time for the holidays! But I didn’t pull out this recipe just so I could use that cheesy metaphor, I promise.  These peppers totally stand on their own merits.

Speaking of standing, have you ever heard that joke about how you can tell a male bell pepper from a female one? — the answer being that the female peppers have four nubs on the bottom, so they can stand on their own, but the male peppers only have three, so they fall over without another pepper to lean on.

 

It’s not actually true, the fruits of the pepper plant have no gender, and the number of feet is just genetic variation. Factual biology isn’t very funny after all. But it is true that the ones with more feet tend to have more space inside, so choose your serving size accordingly. You can fill anywhere from four very-large to eight rather-small peppers with this recipe.

 

The fastest way to clean them out is to use a pair of kitchen shears to snip straight down the inner ribs…

 

…then just reach in and pluck the guts out whole. Very efficient.

 

For the filling, first chop up 1 cup of cilantro, which is conveniently about one bunch, in grocery store packaging terms.

 

Also dice up 1 onion, and dump in two 4-oz. cans of diced green chiles. Don’t worry, “mild” in this case means truly mild, it’s not too spicy for kids at all.

 

Add in 2 teaspoons of cumin…

 

1 teaspoon of chili powder…

 

…and 1 teaspoon of salt.

 

Now mash around 1 pound of ground turkey until everything’s nice and meaty. Incidentally, I originally got this recipe from the fantastic Elana over at Elana’s Pantry, but somehow mine come out looking completely different than hers. I think she must use fresh chopped up turkey, even though her recipe says ground. It would certainly be a good way to use up leftover holiday poultry.

 

Stuff the meat mixture inside each pepper, making sure to press it all the way down into its little feminine feet.

 

Lay them in a greased dish, and bake at 350 degrees for an hour. If you’re especially fastidious in choosing well-footed peppers, you could save space and cook them all standing up, but only if you don’t overload them like I did here.

 

Mine are so crammed full of deliciousness, they couldn’t even make it down a chimney.

 

Happy Holiday Eating!

 

Stuffed Red Peppers

4-8 large red bell peppers
1 lb. ground turkey
1 cup fresh cilantro
1 onion
8 oz. diced green chiles
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt