Hi everyone! I am a fantastic pepper grower! Back when I started my garden in March, I went to Home Depot and bought some plants that were already started, along with some seeds. One plant was a little Serrano Pepper plant, and one was just called a hybrid hot pepper and bell pepper, which I didn’t expect to be as hot as they actually are. I think they are a bit hotter than the Serranos. I did some searching online, and I think it might be a MexiBell Hybrid. They are cute little bell pepper shapes, but with a real kick.
Apparently, both the Serrano and MexiBell Hybrid are the most prolific pepper plants ever created. I have used both in red chili, white chili, sausage and peppers, Mexican dips and lots of other dishes. It made a dent in the crop, but I even had to freeze some of the peppers for future use this winter.
To freeze the peppers, I sliced them in half the long way and scraped out the seeds and veins. Then I sliced them in half again the long way, sort of a julienne cut. I put them on a small cookie sheet and put them into the freezer until they were frozen solid, a couple of hours. Then I transferred them to a quart freezer bag (with the contents and date written on the bag – I forget that step occasionally) and put them in the chest freezer for this winter.
I do want to mention that many times when I have worked with these peppers, my hands have burned for hours afterwards, no matter how often I wash them. For some reason I can never find gloves to wear to keep the heat off my fingers. However, I always have plastic grocery bags on hand, so now I put a plastic grocery bag on each hand before I cut and scrape out the peppers. They are thin enough to easily manipulate your hands while you work with peppers, and they save a lot of grief later.
But low and behold, I have a bunch of peppers begging to be used again, so I searched the internet for some idea. I found an easy and quick stuffed pepper recipe that I want to share with you.
Ingredients
10 Serrano peppers (I also used a few MexiBell Hybrid peppers, and they worked great as well)
4 oz softened cream cheese
1 ½ tbsp dried cilantro (you can also use 3 tbsp fresh cilantro)
4 slices deli roasted turkey
Instructions
Slice the peppers lengthwise, scrape out the seeds and veins and give them a rinse.
If you use fresh cilantro, finely chop it. Finely chop the turkey. Mix both the cilantro and turkey with the cream cheese.
Line a small cookie sheet with foil and lay the pepper halves on the foil, cut side up.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and stuff the cut peppers with the cream cheese, turkey and cilantro mixture. Bake them for about 20 minutes until the filling starts to slightly brown.
Even though the creamy, cool stuffing helps counteract the bite of the pepper, these can still be quite hot. If you don’t like heat, please be aware that these are pretty spicy. To cut down on the heat, you can use Jalapeno peppers. To cut out the heat altogether, you can stuff the filling into mini bell peppers, and they would still be delicious. The mix of the roasted turkey, cilantro and cream cheese is heavenly!
I actually have started some new bell pepper plants, and they are coming up beautifully. I want to keep at least one hot pepper plant, but I think I’ll have more options with the bell peppers.
