Stuffed Green Peppers

Since my last post had stuffed green peppers, I thought I should write about them.  I tried to come up with a snazzy title, but Stuffed Green Peppers are perfection all on their own.  As someone who rarely has favorites, I can say that this is my favorite summertime food.  Of course, it is a family recipe.  Of course, there are different ways of making it.  Everything is estimated and the flavor changes depending on the quality or type of ingredients used.  Although my green peppers did not do well in the garden, I found a sack of them at the farmer's market for pennies on the pound.  With my bounty of tomatoes, I decided that stuffed green peppers had to be on the menu tonight.

The Basics

The basics are this:  Ground beef, rice, chili powder, tomatoes, onions, salt, pepper, and green peppers.  Mom and I preferred ground chuck in peppers.  A good tip is to watch the sales.  When chuck roasts go on sale, ask the butcher to grind a few roasts up for you.  I did that today.  I could either purchase 80-20 ground beef for $3.99/pound or chuck roast for $3.29/pound.  I like the roast route because I also know what meat is in it, and I can ask the butcher to remove the fat that is hard to the touch.  This usually gives me ground beef that is leaner than most and still is flavorful.

Today, I had a lot of tomatoes that were ripe in the garden.  Granny used Early Girl or Beefsteak tomatoes.  Mom liked Better Boy tomatoes.  Today, I used some Early Girls, Rutgers, Mortgage Lifters, and a few Black Cherry tomatoes.  The tomato ratio is generally a huge tomato to a pound of ground beef, but I used a variety since my tomatoes were pretty small.  (In the winter, when tomatoes are flavorless, I will add a small can of tomato sauce to the mix.)

Tomatoes and a Sugar Baby Watermelon

I prefer using four-lobed peppers, but the bag I received today were a mix of four and three-lobes.  Four lobed peppers rest better in the pan.  My choice was to hand-select four-lobes for 89 cents per pepper or buy a bag of mixed for $3.00.  Since I am my mother's child, I went for the less spendy of the two options.  Still, four-lobes do not roll around.  Wash the peppers, slice them into halves, and remove seeds and the white-pithy ribs.  By doing this step first, you can better select a pan that will fit best.  (By the way, who possesses Granny's granite ware roaster?  Not the big one, but the medium one.  It's perfect for peppers!)

Four-lobed peppers do not fall over!

Okay, here is where the nostalgia comes in: When I make a lot of peppers, I use Granny's big blue bowl.  I believe she got it when she set up house-keeping.  It's made of stoneware and was once heavily glazed in blue.  She used it so much that the glaze along the rim is  completely worn off.  I remember her using it for so many things and I use it for mixing up the stuffing for stuffed green peppers!

Granny's Mixing Bowl of Blue

So, you put everything but the green pepper in.  Ratios again.  To roughly a pound of ground beef, put a chopped medium onion, teaspoon of salt, tablespoon of chili powder, a cup of cooked rice, and maybe a half of teaspoon of black pepper.  Mix it all up.  If the beef does not wish to stick to itself, add an egg.  (I add an egg regardless of how much beef I use, but only one.  It never seems to need more.)  Keep in mind that all of these measurements are guesstimates.

Here is a bit of the history of the family recipe for stuffed green peppers:  Granny learned how to make green peppers from her mother.  Grandma Dora's recipe was identical to her meatloaf recipe except she used rice instead of oats.  Grandma Dora, according to Mom, did not use chili powder.  Granny said that she thought of adding chili powder when she was a young mother, but Mom insisted that she was the one who thought of adding chili powder when she was a teenager.  Neither would tell the other they were in the wrong, but each would simply announce that chili powder was their idea.  In either case, I've never had it without chili powder.....until today.

Family First!  Homemade Chili Powder!

I was out of chili powder, so I made my own.  Basically, I mixed 2 parts cumin, 1 part paprika, 1 part cayenne, 1 part dried oregano, and 1 part garlic powder.  It smells similar!  I've not tried it yet, but will give an opinion in comments when I do.  But that is what is essentially in chili powder!

Stuff the peppers.  I always "garnish" mine with a bit of tomato on top, but do not know why.  I know both Granny and Mom always wanted their peppers "pretty" and would take time to shape them before baking them.

Almost Ready to Bake

Add about an inch of water in the pan.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 90 minutes.  

Ignore the burned berry stain on the oven bottom!!!

Remove from the oven and uncover.

Pre-browned Peppers

Return to the oven.  The water will cook down a bit more and the tops will brown a bit more.  This will take about 20 minutes.

Granny was a seasonal cook.  I always knew what day it was by what was on the table.  She usually made stuffed green peppers on weekends and would serve them with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, string beans, tomato slices, and sometimes cornbread sticks or dinner rolls.  I loved having a stuffed pepper as a sandwich the next day.  Just plain white bread and mustard.  The pepper and filling provided the rest.  It's an awesome sandwich!

One thing: No one's stuffed peppers were ever as good as Granny's.  Once I thought it was because she just had the touch for making them, but then she made them while staying with Mom in Lafayette.  I've decided that it must be the water in Middlesboro that made the difference.  While growing up, the water in Middlesboro came from Fern Lake.  The water had a distinctive flavor that I loved.  The peppers were simple perfection.

I never have stuffed green peppers without thinking of Mom and Granny.  We got to select what we wanted for our birthdays while growing up and I always asked for stuffed peppers.

A better picture with more realistic colors!
Some things that I discovered on my own are that you can use different colored peppers and it does not vary the taste much.  Also, cooked peppers freeze fairly well.  To me, stuffed peppers taste like childhood summertime.  When Dalton was here, I tried to make them, but the ingredients were just so-so, and so the peppers were just so-so.  Next time I will make a pepper believer out of him! 

Update: The homemade chili powder is HOT.  I like it, but it really is hot.  For peppers, I like what I grew up with better, but this is not at all a bad substitute!  I think I might use it in my next chili recipe!

Maybe I will write about cornbread next.  It's time.