Stuffed Italian Frying Peppers can be served as part of an antipasto platter or as a side dish, hot or at room temperature. Sorry about the photo, it seems to have ended up sideways:) This recipe is easily doubled. I halved the recipe and it turned out well. I topped the finished product with the bruschetta mixture from my previous recipe and then just heated that through in the oven for five minutes at the end. To be honest, although it was good, next time around I would spice it up a bit by reducing the bread and adding some cooked ground chicken and hot chili peppers to the mix. This recipe is for 4 accompaniment servings.
Ingredients:
2 cups fresh 1/2 inch bread cubes (about 3 slices of bread---to make this healthier, I used multigrain/flax seed bread)
2 tbsp olive oil (or to taste--I found that I needed more olive oil & with just half the recipe I used about 4 tbsp of olive oil)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3/4 cup freshly grated Romano cheese
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
4 Italian frying peppers (3 ounces each), tops removed and seeded. Okay, I just used sweet red peppers (you could use green or yellow ones too).
1. Preheat oven to 375F. On cookie sheet, toast bread cubes until light golden, about 6 to 7 minutes---keep an eye on them so they don't over toast!
2. Meanwhile, in 10 inch skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring, until tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
3. Add cheese, parsley, and croutons to onion, tossing to combine. Spoon crouton mixture into peppers, pressing down gently to fill. I then drizzled 1/2 a tbsp of olive oil over the top of the mixture inside of each pepper. Place peppers on their sides in 11 x 7 inch baking dish. Drizzle remaining tbsp of oil over the side of the peppers and cover with foil. Bake 40 minutes. Remove foil, top with previously mentioned bruschetta mixture if you desire and bake until peppers are tender (about 5 minutes longer).
