Taco Stuffed Peppers

Preface- Sorry for so many red pepper recipes. It was not planned this way, but makes a nice theme anyways. 🙂

Have you ever noticed how when you place the word pizza in a recipe title, it’s usually a big hit. I find that tacos are a very close second. It’s hard not to like something with the flavor of pizza or tacos inside. And when it’s time to get the kids eating a little better, you have to get creative in what you fix.

I debuted stuffed peppers with my family only within the past year. Hubby has never been fond of sweet peppers before. It’s key that the filling be really great to get him to eat it. Popping the peppers in the oven for a little bit of time before filling them will get them started in the cooking process and soften them up just a bit.

The taco filling inside these babies is SO yummy. Onions, beef (or turkey), taco seasoning, and corn provide the perfect taco-y-ness. I just love the words that I make up. Don’t you? That one almost sounds like one my 5 year old would make up!

It’s really the cream cheese that makes them so tasty. I think, anyways.

You can top them with whatever taco fixin’s you’d normally like. The sky’s the limit! I had mine with lettuce and sour cream.

One tip that seemed to make it easier for me was to cut both ends off your peppers. Normally I’d leave the bottom but because there were seeds still hiding and since I don’t like to eat the tough ends, it only made sends to cut it flat on the bottom. Just be sure to use a spatula to carefully move it onto your plate without losing the yummy filling.

These peppers weren’t as soft as I would like them to be. Next time I’ll be making sure that I leave them to cook a bit longer. I used a knife to cut the pepper into strips to eat with my filling. But in a perfect world, the pepper would be much softer and easy to use a fork to gather bites along with the filling.

Enjoy the recipe!

Taco Stuffed Peppers
Recipe Type: Main Dish
Author: Pennywise Cook
Shake up your taco night with stuffed peppers instead!
Ingredients
  • 4 Red Bell Peppers
  • 1 lb Lean Ground Beef
  • 1 Medium Onion, Chopped
  • 1 Pkg Taco Seasoning
  • 1/4 Water
  • 1 Can Whole Kernel Corn
  • 4 oz Cream Cheese
  • 1/2 Cup Shredded Reduced-Fat Cheddar Cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Cut ends off bell peppers and remove seeds. Place in baking dish and bake for 15 minutes.
  3. In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown ground beef with onion. Once browned, reduce heat. Stir in taco seasoning, water, corn, and cream cheese. Mix well and simmer until cream cheese is completely melted.
  4. Meanwhile, remove peppers from oven and fill each with equal amounts filling. Bake for 30 minutes.
  5. Remove from oven and top with equal amounts shredded cheese. Return to oven to bake for another 10 minutes.
  6. Cool.

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Roasted Red Pepper Basil Meatloaf

I’ve told you before how I don’t make meatloaf very often. I’m working on that now that I have been made aware that my family apparently loves it. Who knew?!

My garden has been very fertile in the basil department lately so I knew that I had to whip something up that involved sweet and fragrant basil. I’m not sure why meatloaf came to mind, but it did, so I went with it. Determined to get away from that stereotypical ketchup flavor, I decided to go with something else that shared the same fiery red color.

Red peppers. Yes. Those would be perfect.

But going off the result of a recent stuffed red pepper experiment in my home, I knew that they would have to be roasted and pretty much beyond recognition. At least for this family to eat them. So I pulverized them. Or in other words, pureed them along with the basil and made a sauce to go inside and on top of my meatloaf.

The result was nothing short of amazing. They took the bait y’all! I watched my 5 year old an entire piece of this meatloaf. I kid you not.

Albeit, she did say when she was finished “mommy, I didn’t like this meatloaf but I ate it all.” Hmmm, makes a lot of sense. It’s not as if I was forcing her to eat it! Nevertheless, my husband even ate the leftovers for lunch the next day so it must have been at least edible otherwise he would’ve left it there “for others to eat”.

The only issue I’d have to say I had with this meatloaf was the sauce needed a little pep. Maybe just a little more salt and pepper and I could’ve pureed it just a tad bit more. But aside from that, I was fairly impressed with its fanciness compared to your average ketchup meatloaf. (Even though that’s also very tasty!)

If you’re brave enough to try this one or your family, or perhaps need a change from ketchup you might try this one out!

Enjoy!

Roasted Red Pepper Basil Meatloaf
Recipe Type: Main Dish
Author: Pennywise Cook
A change from your everyday ketchup meatloaf, this one lends its fanciness from roasted red peppers and fragrant basil!
Ingredients
  • 1 lb Ground Turkey
  • 1/2 c. Onion, Finely Chopped- Minced
  • 1 Egg White
  • 4 Large Basil Leaves, Chopped (or about 3 tbsp)
  • Dash salt & pepper
  • 2 Tsp Minced Garlic
  • 1 Jar Roasted Red Peppers
  • 1 and 1/2 c. Bread Crumbs
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. In a food processor or blender, puree the red peppers and basil together along with salt & pepper.(Should make about 1 cup sauce)
  3. In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, onion, garlic, egg white, basil, bread crumbs, and 1/2 red pepper sauce.
  4. Form into a loaf in a small baking dish or loaf pan.
  5. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and pour the other 1/2 c. red pepper sauce over top.
  6. Continue baking for another 15 minutes or so. Internal temp should reach at least 170°.
Notes

Feel free to play with the spices in this one!


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