More from the Kitchen

I was looking at recipes on the internet and ran across one for stuffed peppers.  I thought to myself, "I haven't had stuffed peppers in ages," and decided to try making them for last Friday's supper.  In Mexico, "chiles rellenos", poblano peppers stuffed with cheese, are a staple, but I doubted that Alejandro had ever had the stuffed peppers that we "gringos" are familiar with.  (I believe that our stuffed peppers have their origins in Eastern European cooking.)

A bell pepper is known in Spanish as a "pimiento morrón".  The ones at Walmart are generally too soft, so when I went to the "tianguis" (the weekly street market in the neighborhood) on Thursday, I bought four nice, firm red bell peppers.  The vendor threw in a green pepper for free, so I prepared a fifth stuffed pepper to put in the freezer.

The peppers are blanched in boiling water for a couple of minutes and then set aside.

I cooked the rice which is used in the stuffing.  I used pre-cooked, brown rice which was done in ten minutes.

Next I prepared a tomato sauce.  At stores here I have never found cans of tomato sauce, so I used a carton of crushed tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, added some sauteed chopped onion and garlic and Italian spices.  It came out quite tasty.

 

Then I sauteed some more onions and garlic, added ground beef, the rice and the tomato sauce.  I seasoned it with some salt, pepper and sweet paprika.

  

I cut off the tops of the bell peppers, scooped out all the seeds and membranes, and filled them with the meat mixture.  I left enough room to top each one off with shredded cheese.  The recipe called for mozzarella, but I used Manchego cheese.

I was able to prepare the peppers in the afternoon and then put them in the fridge.  Alejandro called me when he was on his way to the apartment.  I covered the peppers with foil, and baked them for thirty minutes in a 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 C) oven.  Then I took off the foil and baked them for another ten minutes to brown the cheese.

I was just finishing when Alejandro arrived.  I had never made stuffed peppers before, so I was a bit nervous about how they would come out.  But they were very good, and Alejandro really liked them.