Stuffed CSA Bag
This week I had yellow peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, potatoes and kohlrabi in my CSA bag. Peppers must have done very well this growing season because we had a surplus at home as well as receiving them in the bag. That is all right because we use peppers in many items that we make throughout the week. I really didn’t have any one particular vegetable in mind when I started pulling them out and started to prepare them. Although looking back at what I prepared you can definitely see a theme. Several dishes I made were stuffed.
The first thing that I made was the Pepper Poppers. Honestly, the recipe is on the back of the wrapper for the Chili Pepper Roaster that I purchased several years ago. I love that the peppers are upright and it can be used in the summer on the grill or in the winter in the oven. The one draw back is that there are only 12 spots and this is such a popular appetizer that you may need to purchase another.
Pepper Poppers
12 fresh peppers (2 1/2 to 3 in length)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 strips of bacon, cut into 12 parts
Cut the tops off the peppers. Remove the seeds and membranes. Stir together cheddar cheese and cream cheese. Spoon cheese mixture into each pepper. Top with a piece bacon, using a toothpick to hold in place. Grill or bake at 350°F for about 60 minutes. Make ahead of time, cover and chill for 4 hours.
Notes:
*A word of caution: Use gloves when handling hot peppers.
*The orange, yellow and red peppers have a thinner skin than jalapeno peppers so only baked them for 45 minutes.
As I said earlier, peppers must have really enjoyed this growing season because we had quite a surplus. I thought what more can I do than slice them for raw, freeze them, or be very generous and give them to the neighbors. When is dawned on me that one of my fellow bloggers, Carrie had posted a recipe for stuffed peppers. Traditionally, stuffed peppers have a base of hamburger, rice and tomato sauce. I was looking for something a little different, and ran across this recipe from Cooking Light . It uses couscous, turkey Italian sausage and garlic-and-herb goat cheese. Another bonus is that it uses a slow cooker to do the baking, so that I can put it in and come back later and it is ready to go.
When it came to the cucumbers I was struggling with what to use them for beyond the slicing and dipping or layering them with a nice fresh salad. When I had an AH HA moment, a family member who attended the Nebraska State Fair posted that they had tried a stuffed cucumber. So a quick phone call and I was ready to tackle the cucumbers.
It wasn’t near as difficult as I had imagined it to be, the most difficult part was getting the center part hollowed out to accommodate the chicken salad that I had made. I peeled the cucumbers, sliced them in half and used an apple corer to hollow it out. But wait I couldn’t go all the way through as I would for and apple so I slid a knife into the hole and broke up the seeds and membrane and out they came. I was glad only the dog was home to watch me try to figure out how to get the center all the way out, I am sure that I looked kind of crazy.
As I said I stuffed mine with chicken salad, but I would imagine that you could use tuna salad or egg salad also. One suggestion that I would have would be to cut your salad ingredients up very small as large pieces don’t really fit all that well into the hollowed out cucumber. You could also use a thick ranch dressing as the center.
Even though I had a few other vegetables in my CSA bag this week, I think I will post what I did with them in a feature blog, so stay tuned.
