Keeping the house, the kids and the hubby without breaking the bank, the earth, the people I love, or myself.

Garden Bounty: Sausage Stuffed Banana Peppers with Fresh Angel Hair Pasta



Today's harvest is tonight's dinner. (Don't worry, I'll finish that series on saving money on groceries.)

My eldest sister passed this recipe on to me. Well, actually it was instructions more than a recipe. The instructions were: stuff a bunch of banana peppers with italian sausage, cover with a tomato sauce, bake til they're done & add some cheese to the top. That's what I did, honest...but I'll try to define it a bit better.

Ingredients

  • banana peppers -- enough for your meal (I used 2 per person, plus a cherry bomb 'cause I wanted to see how it tasted cooked)
  • Spaghetti sauce -- I used two jars, but that's because I know this will make two meals for us.
  • Italian Sausage, hot or whatever you prefer. I used 4 links hot Italian pork sausage and 2 (much larger) links Italian turkey sausage. The turkey sausage was twice as large as the pork but contained only 5 grams fat/0 saturated. The pork sausage was much smaller and contained 15 grams fat/5 saturated. (I'm gonna wean my hubby off the fat one way or another.)
  • 1/4 cup grated cheese. I'm sure fresh Parmesan or Romano would be better....even Mozarella, but I used colby-jack because it's what I have. It was fine.


First, cut & clean your banana peppers. Wash away those seeds and if you've ever had a skin reaction to hot pepper oils, wear gloves while doing this. My skin isn't bothered so much as my hands are like leather at this point in the gardening season. But I scratched my face with my fingernail and left a nice red welt that needed to be cleansed with an alcohol swab . (Alcohol will break down the enzymes that cause that burning sensation.) Even if it doesn't bother your hands, be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after handling it because it can irritate other body parts that you might touch...and some of those body parts might not like alcohol poured over them if you catch my drift.

Next, stuff the peppers. You can leave the peppers whole if they're large and shove the sausage down in them, but this was MUCH easier. I just squeezed the stuffing out of the sausage skins (dear hubby refused to photograph that) right onto the peppers and flattened it down with a knife as needed.

Pour a whole jar of sauce over the stuffed peppers.

Pop into a 325 oven for 40 minutes. (I think you can do 350 for 30 minutes, though.) During the last 5 minutes of cooking time, sprinkle the cheese over the top.

While that's baking, cook your pasta. (I found this store-bought fresh pasta MUCH lighter than dry pasta. I really liked that.)



I also sliced the cukes and cleaned the 'maters.

Here's how the peppers and sauce look when done:

And here's some mighty fine eating:

It was good. It was very good. I prefer the turkey sausage. Never liked the fattiness of pork sausages. Everyone approved. Everyone had seconds. There are still three servings for leftovers.

Okay, the littles didn't eat the hot stuffed peppers (they weren't hot) but they had pasta with sauce and turkey Italian sausage along with almost ALL the cukes and 'maters.

This guy ate most of the cucumber slices:

4 comments:

Gill - That British Woman 5:41 PM  

are banana peppers hot?

Gill

CannedAm 6:09 PM  

Some are and some aren't. Because these were a bit under ripe they were really mild....like a 3 on a 1-10 scale, 10 the hottest. I have one bush of sweet banana peppers and four of the hot ones. Even fully ripe they average about a 5-6.

Gill - That British Woman 5:45 PM  

I don't like anything hot or spicy.........we're British, it has to be plain and bland!!! LOL

Gill

CannedAm 6:38 PM  

LOL! Well with this one it doesn't have to be. You can use the sweet banana peppers & mild sausage as well :)

Now most of my ancestry is Irish and Scottish. We used to joke about 'cooking the Irish way.' Which is 'boil it till it's mush & put a hunk of butter on top' :) LOL! I've developed a taste for hot foods in my adulthood, though.

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About This Blog

Saving money. Saving graces. Raising children, husbands and, sometimes, cats. Laughing. Living. Thinking. Doing. Life in the Niagara Region of Ontario.

About Me

I am a happily married woman with four children and various cats and kittens (fosters). I love to read and my favourite authors are George RR Martin, Thomas Hardy, Raymond Carver, PD James, Kurt Vonnegut, J. K. Rowling, and Margaret Atwood. I know there are only three women in that list (and none of them American), so if you'd like to suggest some I'm willing to give them a shot! And yes, I am an American living in Canada. (Hence the nick -- CannedAm.) I like it here. There are things about the states that I miss, but my love is here and this country has things to offer that my own does not. Things that make my quality of life much better than it ever was in Ohio. Guess I'm stuck here. Though there's a nice spot in the Appalachian hills where I'd love to spend my retirement.

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