Too many peppers this year! 70 plants, what on earth was I thinking. I've been preserving many of them but there's still loads of them so now I need to dream up ways of eating more of them now. So here's one dish that I whipped up for dinner recently that got rave reviews from Dave so I knew I needed to write it up because I won't remember how to make it again the next time he wants it.
Blanched chard can be substituted for the spinach. Sautéed chopped onions can be substituted for the dried onion. (I used dried onion for the sake of expediency). Chopped fresh sage or sage cooked in brown butter should be a nice addition to the filling. Or onion and sage sautéed together in butter or olive oil should be good too. Hmm, and since I just wrote a post about corn chicos, some presoaked chicos might be tasty too.
12 ounces ricotta, preferably sheepmilk
2 ounces freshly grated parmesan
1/4 ounce dried sweet onion, chopped (no need to rehydrate)
1/2 teaspoon mild pepper flakes
Freshly grated nutmeg
5 ounces blanched spinach measured after squeezing out excess moisture, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt (or more, I'm watching my salt intake these days)
9 or more roasted sweet peppers such as Ajvarski
Olive oil
Dry coarse breadcrumbs
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
Lightly oil a 8 x 12-inch oval gratin dish or equivalent sized baking dish.
Mix together the ricotta, parmesan, dried onion, pepper flakes, nutmeg, spinach, and salt.
Leave the roasted peppers intact but slit down one side so that they open like a book. Place a couple of tablespoons or so of the ricotta filling on one side of a pepper and fold the other side over to cover the filling. Repeat for the rest of the peppers using all the filling. Place the peppers in the baking dish with the seams to the side. Pack the peppers tightly into the dish so there are no gaps between the peppers, this keeps the filling from oozing out.
Scatter the dried breadcrumbs generously over the top of the peppers and then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until the dish is bubbling merrily all around the edges. Let sit for at least a few minutes or longer before serving.
Makes 3 to 4 main course servings or more as an appetizer.
Showing posts with label Sweet Peppers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweet Peppers. Show all posts
Cast Iron Skillet Roasted Frying Peppers
I tried a more hands off approach to cooking up a bunch of frying peppers by roasting them in a cast iron skillet and found that I like the end result even better.
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| Mehmet's Turkish Sweet |
About 1 1/2 pounds frying peppers (Mehmet's Turkish Sweet)
Olive oil
Salt
About 1 tablespoon salt packed Capers, rinsed
3 cloves Garlic
About 1/2 cup fresh parsley leaves
2 anchovy filets
Preheat a 12-inch cast iron skillet in a 350ºF oven. If the peppers are quite young you can leave them whole. For more mature peppers with hard seeds you may want to remove the stems, cut them in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.
Chop the capers and put them in a small bowl. Chop the garlic and parsley leaves separately and then chop them together and then add them to the capers. Mince the anchovy filets and add them to the caper mixture. Thoroughly blend together the caper, garlic, parsley and anchovy mixture with a bit of olive oil. Set aside.
Toss the peppers with enough olive oil to coat them and salt to taste. Add them to the preheated skillet and roast for 30 minutes, tossing every 10 minutes or so. After 30 minutes add the caper mixture to the peppers and toss to combine. Continue roasting the peppers for another 15 minutes, tossing once or twice.
Serve hot.
Makes about 4 servings as a side dish.
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