I cooked a new dish tonight. It took a while conceptualizing it, but I was pretty confident I had the steps and ingredients down.

I was going to stuff bell peppers.

Now this may not seem like a big deal to you, but something about inserting a mixed mess into an uncooked container and then baking the whole shebang doesn’t sound right to me. How is the very inside of the stuffing going to bake right? I don’t know.

Stuffed peppers make me paranoid.

Paranoia aside, I had leftover rice to use up and was determined that this was the way.

The veggies got sauteed briefly with a few dollops of homemade basil marinara. I added the  raw corn right before I took the pan off the heat. Then, the stuffing was underway. It took way more time than expected to stuff the peppers, but getting the nooks and crannies filled was a bigger job than I anticipated. Not only do stuffed bell peppers scare me, they also apparently irritate. This was not really getting off to a good start.

Fortuitously, I had made just enough stuffing to fill each pepper half. That is almost unheard of. Into the oven they went at 350 F for 40 (?) minutes. I don’t know, they were in there for a long time. Since M wasn’t going to be home until later, I had my halves first.

Served with a spoonful more of marinara and a side of cucumber, tomato and basil salad. I wanted to like this bell pepper a lot. Especially since I slaved away in the kitchen to make them. But there was definitely something missing. They were good, just kind of bland despite all the veggies and sauce. Maybe they needed more salt, maybe they needed a ton of cheese. Just something.

When M got home, I broiled his with mozzarella on top and his looked like they might taste better than mine did. He enjoyed them, said it was light meal and would eat it again. But like me, he thought the peppers needed something extra.

For the first stuffed anything I’ve ever made, these were respectable bell peppers. Until next time.

xoxo,

Jenn