How cute is this! The “Stuffed Jack-O-Lantern Bell Peppers,” from allrecipes.com, were prototypical stuffed peppers -- filled with lots of meat -- but I first carved faces in the raw orange peppers, before stuffing and baking them. Right on for Halloween.
I used ground turkey instead of ground beef, and sweet BBQ sauce, rather than chili sauce (to keep these kid-friendly). After baking for an hour, these peppers were as sweet as their filling.
See my links below, for other peppers that I’ve stuffed throughout the years.
How do you feel about eating meringue? How do you feel about making meringue? Your two answers might very well be different. Eating meringue always produces giggles: you bite into a sweet pillow of sugarness. Making meringue involves a stand mixer and an overnight drying period in a quiet oven. The “Meringue Ghosts,” from skinnytaste.com, demand your patience, but they are oh-so-fun.
I halved this recipe, to make only 18 ghosts. This means I used only 2 egg whites, which my stand mixer struggled with for a while before achieving stiff peaks. Remember: the recipe asks you to use room-temperature eggs. The recipe also warns you to keep whipping until there is no more “gritty feeling” from the sugar (“superfine sugar” is achievable by grinding some white sugar in the food processor). It takes a bit of time.
No pastry bag for me. I snipped the corner off a gallon-size Ziploc bag, then piped 18 heaps of the white fluff -- each 2 inches high -- onto my parchment-lined baking tray. These then bake for 90 long minutes. After that, you turn off the oven, partially open the door, then let them sit and dry out in there overnight. By morning, you’ll have crispy meringues!
Other stuffed-pepper masterpieces from camillecooks:
• Couscous and Cremini Stuffed Bell Peppers with Manchego
• Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers
• Stuffed Peppers with Turkey and Vegetables
• Stuffed Peppers with Tomato Sauce
• Mediterranean Stuffed Peppers
PRICES
Bell Peppers (3) = $4.42
RECIPES: Halloween: fun and easy
PREP TIMES: a raw stuffing fills raw peppers, then bakes for 1 hour; meringues need some extended mixing, 90 minutes of baking, then overnight drying
TASTES: my filling was sweet and so were my peppers; meringues are the sweetest of all!
Next time, back to serious food business! I’ll make Jacques Pepin’s Gougeres and an ever-pleasing “Chicken Barley Soup,” from the October 2011 issue of Everyday Food. Come back to my site soon, to see these.
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