Stuffed Red Peppers

Stuffed red peppers came to the rescue last night!  We have some exchange students staying with us at the moment and as one of them is a vegetarian, I brushed off the dust from my veggie recipe collection and put this together. It was deeeelicious and reminded me that I should eat veggie more often. 🥦🍅🌶️🥑

It was stuffed red peppers, roasted and filled with pesto, new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and a scattering of feta cheese, although I used a lactose free cheese last night as another of our visitors is lactose intolerant.

Stuffed Red Peppers

Serves 4 as a main course

• 200g new potatoes, rinsed
• handful of cherry tomatoes, rinsed and halved
• 4 bell peppers (colour of your choice but I like the red the best)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 200g feta cheese (or lactose-free cheese!)
• 2 tbsp pesto (I made my own as the shop bought pesto has milk in it)
• Sea salt and black pepper

Here’s what you need to do:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / Gas 6. Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the new potatoes. Simmer for around 10 – 15 minutes then drain.

Halve the peppers and remove the seeds and pith. I like to keep the top stalk of the pepper attached to one of the halves as they look prettier when served up. Line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Pour the olive oil and balsamic vinegar into the palm of your hand (you may need to do this a couple of times to not overflow your hands) and rub the oil and vinegar over the outsides and insides of the peppers.

Halve or quarter the new potatoes, chop the feta into 1cm cubes and add to a bowl with the new potatoes, cherry tomatoes and pesto. Combine well.

Fill the peppers with the feta, potato, tomato and pesto mix and bake in the oven for around 40 minutes until browned on the outside.

Be careful not to burn your mouth when you dig into them – they have a habit of retaining their heat! And they are WAY more filling than you think they’re going to be, but if you end up cooking more than you need, they make a wicked breakfast the following day with a poached egg on top!