Sunday Supper: Stuffed Peppers with Orzo

For tonight's dinner, I decided I would make stuffed peppers.  I remember having made a version of these years and years ago and for some reason they popped into my head.  I made these with ground turkey and with all the other flavors and seasonings, they were utterly delicious.  But you could really make these with anything you like.  If you wanted to go for the full meaty version, I'd do a combo of beef, pork and veal.

First order of business I chopped up an onion.  I sauteed a little more than half of it in olive oil.  Once the onion was translucent, I added in a chopped clove of garlic and some sliced mushrooms.  I used the regular old white variety but any kind of mushroom you like will do.  I let those cook for a few minutes and then added in the ground turkey (about one pound) and kept it going until the turkey was cooked through.

I put the cooked meat mixture in a bowl and added in some pine nuts, Dijon mustard (a few teaspoons) and a wee bit of sour cream.  I grated some nutmeg and then mixed it all together and used this to stuff the peppers.  I just stuffed two but there's plenty of meat for about 5 peppers.

Put the stuffed peppers in a baking dish, cover them with the top of the peppers and bake them for about 1/2 hour at 350-400.

While the peppers were cooking, I whipped up some orzo risotto style though you could serve these with rice too.  Here's how I made the orzo.  I sauteed the rest of the onion in olive oil in the same pan that I made the meat so not to waste one bit of the flavor.  Once translucent, I added in the orzo to coat it with the oil.  On medium low heat, I cooked the orzo while continually ladling in warm chicken broth and occasionally stirring.  Be sure the broth is warm.  Cold broth just doesn't do the trick.  Once the broth reduced, I would add more broth.  This went on for about 20-25 minutes or so until the orzo was cooked.    Then I finished it off with a generous handful of grated pecorino romano. 

I also happened to have some brussel sprouts from the farmers market so I trimmed the ends, cut them in half and roasted them with some olive oil and kosher salt in the oven while the peppers were cooking.

Once the peppers were done, I served them up atop the orzo.

Since I made a pound of meat and a pound of orzo, I'm going to eat the meat with the orzo as leftovers this week.   The mustard and nutmeg made the meat so full of flavor, it was so very tasty.  

Mangia, bon appetit and all that yada yada.