Rosie Stuffs More Peppers.

If you've been regularly reading my blog and have an attention span greater than that of a gnat, then you might recall Angela from Wisconsin had requested a recipe from Just Ask Rosie for stuffed peppers. And I delivered 5 different stuffed peppers, my favorite being the "Southwestern," with corn, black beans, some other stuff, and cheese. Well, Angela and Dear Readers, I have another stuffed pepper recipe for you that I made last night. I generally don't care for orzo pasta, but this time I made an orzo stuffing for the peppers which was quite good. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

I poured a can of low sodium chicken stock in my pan and brought it to a boil.

Then I added in 1/2 cup of orzo and cooked for about 4 minutes.

Here are the rest of the ingredients for my stuffing: 3 Roma tomatoes 2 garlic cloves 1/2 zucchini 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese mint parsley basil salt and pepper

I chopped my tomatoes and minced the garlic.

I chopped all the herbs and added to the tomatoes.

I peeled and diced the zucchini and added it in.

And my grated Parmesan cheese went in.

I added the orzo, salt and pepper, and stirred to mix.

The stuffing is ready to go into my peppers. I had to do a taste test at this point and I must say it's tasting pretty good right now. So I had to try about 5-6 more spoonfuls just to be sure.

I sliced the tops off my peppers, scraped out the ribs, and stuffed with the orzo mixture.

I placed the peppers in my baking dish ...

... and poured water half-way up.

If you have a misshapen pepper like the red one, prop it up with some foil.

Here are my peppers after 45 minutes, covered, in a 400 degree oven.

I added more Parmesan cheese over top then put the peppers back in the oven until the cheese was nicely browned.

And here are my orzo-stuffed peppers. I have to say, these were quite good. I loved the cheese. Cheese makes everything better. (If I had it to do over, I would have put Mozzarella cheese in with the stuffing, along with the Parmesan, just because I like gooey, melted cheese.) I liked all the flavors - the tomato, the freshness of the herbs. And you had the slight texture of the zucchini contrasting with the softness of the pasta. And the Parmesan cheese. Did I mention the cheese?

I could have eaten just the stuffing alone and been happy.

But the stuffing inside the pepper was even better since you had the roasted pepper flavor permeating the stuffing. I nuked one of the leftover stuffed peppers for lunch today, after adding some slices of Mozzarella. The gooey, ooey Mozzarella made this even better. After nuking the pepper, I noticed the skin was peeling off a bit, so I pulled it off all the way and put the roasted pepper in a jar with a little olive oil over top and will use that later in some dish I've yet to come up with. Please try the peppers. You'll be glad you did.