In Which We Make Sausage Stuffed Peppers, Successfully
Out of the oven, ready to eat!
Stuffing simmering together.
Pre-topping, and pre-oven.
Pretty on the plate! Or do they look like weirdly colorful muffins?
On any given day, I can be found thinking about my dinner plan, or really any food for the day, starting shortly after I've had breakfast. Is it because I am always hungry? Yes. Is it because we have been adding in some new dishes to our weeknight meals and that feels like a whole new cooking world is opening up in our house? For sure.
While we have a solid bucket of staple meals, ingredients, and go-to veggies, I find it super exciting that we have been working harder to expand our dinners, even if it's using similar ingredients from another night, but in a different form. Case in point: tonight we made sausage stuffed peppers! The stuffing is made from the same ingredients (almost entirely) that we used recently to make zucchini boats. Apparently, we enjoy dinners that involved shoving a bunch of cooked meat and veggies into another vegetable and then baking it. Works for me!
For this meal, we did a tag-team approach in the kitchen, which meant that while my husband chopped the veggies, and prepped the peppers, I put together the crumb topping and prepared the sausage (a somewhat gross experience, but oh well. What we do for delicious food, right?). I really enjoy the fact that he usually handles 100% of the cooking in our house; however, there is something entertaining (and cute) about working together to make dinner. Yes, I definitely hold the 'supporting role' category in high regard, but it's all important to the success of the meal. And for the record, teamwork in the kitchen allows for dinner to get to the table far quicker and that's something we both appreciate! Because we are both always hungry. :)
Dinner Notes: As stated, we used the same ingredients that were in the zucchini boats. But here is a quick rundown: Hot Italian Sausage (1 pound), 4 peppers (whichever colors you prefer), 1 onion, a small package of fancy mushrooms (we used Maitake), 3 small chopped plum tomatoes, and two cloves of garlic. In the topping, we used 1/4 cup Italian GF breadcrumbs, a small pile of shredded parmesan, and a few sprinkles of mozzarella (all of those are mixed together, then sprinkled on the top of each stuffed pepper, pre-baking). We filled the carved out peppers with the stuffing that cooked for about 10 minutes, and then put handfuls (literally) of the crumb topping on top. Into the oven it went at 350 degrees for 19 minutes, or until you like the color of the cheese/breadcrumb topping. Enjoy!