I have to be honest and tell you, I’ve never been excited to eat stuffed peppers. But when I saw purple peppers offered by Signal Mountain Farm at the Chattanooga Market on Sunday, I knew I was willing to try again and figure out a way for them to be more exciting.
I don’t measure all the time so this is an estimate of what I used. But you should always season to your taste, especially salt and pepper. And feel free to add more goat cheese because quite frankly, this was what makes these peppers a repeat recipe for me. I only made 3 creamy stuffed purple peppers so you’ll want to double or add to this recipe if you are cooking for more. There was some leftover mixture and it’d probably be enough for a 4th pepper.
What I used: 
1/4 lb of grass finished beef
1/4 lb of mild sausage
1/2 chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced (I like a lot of garlic.)
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp real salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup of cooked rice (I usually make enough rice at the beginning of the week because I do use it often to mix into various recipes. Being half korean, I tend to use rice often. Having it already precooked in the fridge makes one less step during dinner prep.)
1 pint of canned diced tomatoes (This was from my last summer’s stash of canned tomatoes and my last pint. I can’t wait for the 2 cases of tomatoes I ordered so I can stash some more.)
3 large purple peppers (course any color will do)
2 oz Goat cheese (You could use feta cheese too.)
About 8 oz of Earthfare Organic Portabella pasta sauce (because I’m out of canned sauce but this sauce was really a perfect pairing with the goat cheese.)
First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Saute the onions and garlic in some bacon grease. Why? Because that is what I had next to the stove. But you can use butter or your other favorite real food oil. Then toss in the beef and sausage and brown it. (You can use all beef but seasoned sausage really adds to this dish.) Season with oregano, salt and pepper. I should have thrown in some basil. Toss in the cooked rice rice and tomatoes and mixed it all up. Taste it here to see if it needs any more seasoning and adjust accordingly. Let this simmer while you work on the peppers. Wash your peppers and cut out the tops and reserve them. Pull out seeds. You may need to trim the bottom of the peppers so that they will sit flat in your dish (and on your plate). Crumble up your goat cheese. Stuff the pepper with your beef mixture about half way up. Then generously layer goat cheese. Then fill up the peppers the rest of the way with more beef mixture and one more layer of goat cheese. Pour pasta sauce over the top and let the excess sit in the bottom of the pan. Add the pepper top and put them in the oven. These peppers were thinner than typical green peppers so I only cooked them for 30 minutes and thought they were perfectly cooked. If you do more peppers and if they are pretty thick, you may have to go 45-55 minutes.
This was served with a garden salad with homemade lemon vinaigrette which I will share with you later. The creaminess of the goat cheese with the the sweetness of last year’s summer tomatoes was a really nice pairing. The goat cheese kicked these creamy stuffed purple peppers up to a new level and I’ll be looking forward to making these again! Bon appetite!
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