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If you grew up with a parent who cooked, then chances are there are at least a few recipes you remember eating back in the day that you still crave when you want a comfort food meal. For some people, that might be homemade matzah ball soup; for others, a skillet of bubbling Hambuger Helper (90’s kids know). But for Martha Stewart, one of those recipes is her mom Martha Kostyra’s stuffed peppers. If you’ve been looking for a new yet nostalgic comfort food recipe to add to your repertoire, this one just might be it. Even better? It’s vegetarian, and the ingredients called for are affordable too. Meatless comfort food recipes are hard to come by, so it’s definitely a win.
The star of the dish is the peppers themselves, so try to pick out the biggest, firmest ones you can find. Stewart uses yellow peppers, which are sweet and tender, but you can opt for any color, with green being the firmest if that’s the texture you prefer.
Courtesy of Clarkson Potter.
Then there’s the filling. It’s made with rice, aromatics, herbs, and two special ingredients: toasted pine nuts, and orange juice-soaked raisins. The raisins give the dish a vintage feel (you can use black or golden), but if you’re not a fan, you could try dried cranberries or dried cherries instead. As for the pine nuts, if they’re too pricy for your budget, try slivered almonds instead.
Courtesy of Diamond of California.
The peppers are stuffed with the par-cooked rice mixture, then are set on a bed of tomato slices before going into the oven. Just under an hour later, you’ll have a pan of tender, sweet bell peppers, filled with fluffy tender rice, toasted pine nuts, pops of dried fruit, and a tangy roasted tomato accompaniment to scoop on top. Serve with yogurt or labneh, and with your favorite hot sauce, to really amp up the flavors and textures.
The dish is vegetarian as-is, but you could mix ground meat, or chopped sausage, with the rice if you want something heartier. You can add more vegetables to the stuffing mix, too. We love how flexible Martha Stewart’s stuffed peppers recipe is, and for those days when nothing but pure comfort food will do, this will be a go-to meal.
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