Stuffed Peppers With A Twist

The June issue of Southern Living magazine features a series of recipes where the star is a vegetable.  One of my favorite things about this time of year is the plentiful bounty of garden vegetables.  Growing up, Mother made stuffed green bell peppers usually with ground beef and rice. I have never been a fan of the green bell pepper, but serve me their cousins “red, orange, and yellow” and I am sold.  So, when I saw this recipe for Stuffed Peppers with Grits and Sausage I knew I had to give it a try.

Note:  Miss Bee does not eat red meat or pork.  I substituted the pork sausage for turkey sausage (Jimmy Dean’s breakfast sausage crumbles).  It was the perfect switch and Miss Bee gave it two-thumbs up.  This is a big deal, folks.

The recipe can be found here.  But I will also provide.  It takes about an hour to prep and cook this dish, so be sure to allow yourself enough time, but it will be well worth the investment.

Ingredients:

3 large red bell peppers

1 TBL canola oil

3 hot Italian sausage links, casings removed (I used one bag of Jimmy Dean’s Turkey Sausage breakfast crumbles.  They are precooked so I just warmed them up with the onions in a skillet).

1 cup chopped sweet onion

1/2 cup coarse cornmeal (they recommend McEwen & Sons, I used the regular cornmeal I bake with).

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 cup whole milk

1 tsp. kosher salt, divided

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

3 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided

3 TBL. olive oil

2 TBL. white wine vinegar

1/4 tsp black pepper

2 cups heirloom grape tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup basil leaves

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.  Microwave bell peppers on HIGH for 2 minutes in microwave.  Cut bell peppers in half through the stem. Remove seeds and white membranes using a serrated tomato corer or melon baller, leaving stem intact.  Discard seeds and membranes.

Heat canola oil in a large skillet over medium-high.  Add sausage to skillet and cook 4 minutes, stirring to break into small pieces.  Add onion to skillet; cook, stirring occasionally, until sausage is cooked and onion is tender, about 3 minutes. Remove sausage mixture from pan.  Add cornmeal to skillet and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add broth, milk, and 3/4 tsp. of the salt to the skillet; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to a medium and cook stirring occasionally until liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.  Stir in parsley, sausage mixture, and half of the cheese. Divide mixture evenly among bell pepper halves.  Place side by side on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven until cheese is browned and peppers are tender, about 30 minutes.

While the peppers are baking, whisk together olive oil, vinegar, black pepper and remaining 1/4 tsp of sale in a medium bowl.  Add tomatoes and basil; toss to coat.  Serve over peppers.

The inside is so delicious and is the perfect filling to accompany the pepper.  I couldn’t help but think this would be a hearty entree to serve for brunch because it has grits, sausage and cheese.

The family loved it so the recipe is now torn out of the magazine and into the permanent recipe binder.  Let me know if you make it and how you liked it!