Culinary Adventures with Bob and Al: Peppers Everywhere

A couple Fridays ago, Bob suggested that we make stuffed peppers. The daring Bob did not want to look up a recipe for said stuffed peppers, he thought we should just make it up. This made me very nervous, I can really mess food up when I HAVE a recipe (i.e. the twice baked potato that turned into partially mashed potatoes last week?).  Nevertheless, I thought this sounded fun, so I agreed that YES, let’s make stuffed bell peppers sans recipe. Little did I know, Bob had a secret competition brewing. When we got to Whole Foods, I discover that HE is going to make his own set of stuffed peppers and I am going to make my own set. Fine then Bob, if that’s the way you want it, I will go on my stuffed peppers journey alone.

I defaulted into making something from my childhood and stuffing into a big bell pepper. I knew it was super easy, my mom used to make it on the regular, so I decided to take the easy way out on this and not think too much. I did try to spice it up a little, but I wanted to keep it simple because I was nervous it would be inedible and we would be going to Little Ceasars.

The contents of my stuffed bell peppers:

-steamed rice
-broccli sauteed with a two chopped garlic cloves and olive oil
-gratted sharp cheddar
-half can of all white albacore tuna

I mixed these all together and stuffed into a pepper and put in the oven for about 20 minutes. It was good…success! My one complaint is that the pepper itself wasn’t cooked through. When Giada does stuffed peppers, she puts water on the bottom of the baking dish and cooks for an hour…sooo, next time I’ll do that.

Bob’s stuffed peppers were way more fun, had more variety and caused me to eat bacon. (You proud, Jamie?)

Bob's peppers were orange dulce, yellow hot, pablano and small sweet peppers.

In the orange dulce, yellow hot and small sweet peppers, he made two types of stuffing.

-marscapone cheese
-grilled corn
-bacon

and

-marscapone cheese
-peas
-bacon

For the pablano his stuffing included

-grilled chicken breast
-steamed rice
-spicy Italian sausage
-grilled corn

Bob's 3 pepper stuffing contents

*Bob's tip for bakin' bacon*

-place bacon sprinkled with brown sugar in the oven for about 10-15 minutes on 350 degrees for appetizing results

He stuffed the peppers and put them in the oven with mine. Though we had separate peppers recipes they still wanted to be in the oven together. How romantic. I didn’t eat any of his peppers, excecpt for a bite of the little corn and bacon one, but they all looked delecious. He really impressed me with his concoctions.

Culinary mastermind, Bob Scarff. Watch out Bobby Flay....Next Food Network Star is hiding out in Lakewood....