Slovenian Dinner Week 41, a Healthy Makeover: Stuffed Peppers with Turkey-Kasha Filling

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Stuffed Peppers with Turkey-Kasha Filling
Fresh Cranberry Beans
Green Salad
Lost Kosovo Kugel


After my recent excursion to the FoodBuzz Blogger Festival, it was a relief to get back to the simpler, down-to-earth cooking traditions of my Slovenian American forbears.

But that foodie festival did strengthen my resolve to continue working on healthier versions of the traditional recipes I had been making.

Stuffed peppers, one of my early dishes, was a prime candidate for an overhaul. Although it was a successful Week 7 entree, those peppers had been a little too firm. I had already resolved to parboil them, and probably to leave them whole, the next time around.

Now, with an eye to a healthy makeover, I made a few more changes.  For starters, I would make an all-turkey filling, instead of the beef-pork-turkey mixture I had used before. That meant increasing the spices, as I had done in my recent attempt at healthy turkey cevapcici.  And why not substitute high-protein, flavorful kasha for the white rice?  It might not be traditional, but it would be in the Slovenian spirit.

Otherwise, I followed my original recipe, although I did add a little wine to the tomato sauce.

When I went to the market in the morning, I found a surprise: fresh cranberry beans, otherwise known as Roman or borlotti beans.  By now, the dried version had become a staple in my Slovenian kitchen.  I couldn't resist buying these tasty beans fresh, although I wasn't quite sure how to prepare them.

And for dessert, I invented something new: Lost Kosovo Kugel.  But that's a story in itself.

Stuffed Peppers with Turkey-Kasha Filling

About 8 fresh peppers, assorted colors (I used half green and half red)

1.5 lb. ground turkey
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 t. smoked paprika
1 c. cooked kasha (buckwheat groats)
¼ c. fresh parsley, minced
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
1 egg, beaten

For the sauce:

14 oz. can organic Italian peeled tomatoes
14 oz. can organic diced fire-roasted tomatoes
7 oz. strained Italian tomatoes
¼ c. reserved browned onion-garlic mixture
2 oz. red wine
1 t. paprika
2 t. brown sugar
1 t. salt

To prepare the peppers: Remove stem ends carefully and set aside to use as lids.  Clean out the inside of each pepper.  Parboil for 10 minutes in boiling salted water.  Drain and cool.

To cook kasha: Bring 2 cups salted water to boil.  Add 1 cup uncooked kasha.  Let simmer 10 minutes, covered.  Measure out 1 cup and save the rest.  Let cool.

To make filling: Brown onion and garlic well in olive oil.   Set ¼ cup aside to use in sauce. Mix the remaining onion-garlic mixture with the rest of filling ingredients.

To make sauce: Mix all ingredients together and simmer for about fifteen minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings.

To assemble: Put a little tomato sauce in the bottom of a Dutch oven or other large casserole dish.  Arrange peppers inside.  Divide filling among them. (You may have some filling left over.) If you like, add the previously removed  “lid” on top of each pepper. Add more sauce, almost to cover.  Bake at 350 degrees, for 1 hour or more.  Add more sauce if needed.

stuffed peppers, before adding sauce

stuffed peppers, after baking

Fresh Cranberry Beans

Shell the beans.  Rinse and drain in a colander.  Admire the pretty pink mottling, because it will disappear once the beans are cooked!   Simmer in a pot of boiling salted water for 10-20 minutes, until tender.  Drain.  Toss with a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper.

The verdict?  The stuffed peppers were delicious!  The peppers themselves benefited from parboiling and then a longer time in the oven.  We didn't miss the beef and pork in the filling at all.  The addition of kasha worked well.  It created the same dense texture as the traditional rice-meat mix, but with an intriguing hearty, smoked buckwheat flavor.

The beans were a nice, mild complement.  The flavor was even better the next day, after they had marinated in the dressing.

As for that  Kosovo Kugel, I think perhaps it should remain lost.  To learn the full story, read on!

Slovenian Dinner Week 7: Stuffed Pepper Odyssey

Menu
Stuffed Peppers (Nadevana Paprika)
Coleslaw
Braised Broccoli and Kohlrabi

I grew up eating stuffed peppers, but I had no idea this might be a Slovenian dish, until I found recipes in all three of my vintage cookbooks.   I'd thought of it as Tex-Mex, probably because my mother referred to the meat-rice filling as Spanish rice.

I continued to wonder if it might be an American dish, until a conversation at last week's Pust dinner at the Slovenian Hall in San Francisco.  I'd been describing my new cooking venture to one of the men there.  He listened with interest when I mentioned the first dish I'd tackled, stuffed cabbage.  Back home in Slovenia,  he said, it was even more common for their family to have stuffed peppers.  So now I knew for sure: this dish was legitimate!

In those mid-1950s recipes, the seasoning did seem a little bland, just salt and pepper. Some online searching turned up a few Slovenian recipes with paprika and garlic, so I felt I could justify that addition.  I drew from all those sources to come up with a final recipe for stuffed peppers with tomato sauce.

But first, it was off to the big produce market around the corner to buy some peppers. This time, I took my camera.  Once again,  I was seeing our familiar neighborhood market with fresh eyes.  I felt enchanted by the beautiful shapes and jewel-like colors of the vegetables:

I picked out an assortment of organic peppers:  red, green, yellow and orange.  And then, just for fun, I picked up a handful of baby peppers:

Back in my kitchen,  I admired my wares.  I arranged those bright, shiny peppers in a glass bowl:

Then, my imagination took over.  I arranged them as a pepper family.  Papa, beaming at Mama beside him, with the baby peppers gathered in front.

Enough whimsy!  Time to get to work on dinner.



Filling:
1 1/2 lb. ground meat (turkey, pork, and beef mix)
1 large onion, chopped (1 c.)
1 large clove garlic
1 t. paprika
1/4 c. rice, parboiled
1 egg
1 t.salt
1 t. pepper
olive oil for browning

Sauce:
28 oz. can ground peeled organic tomatoes
14.5 oz. can organic diced fire roasted tomatoes
1 t. paprika
2 t. brown sugar
1 t. salt
1 t. pepper
remaining 1/4 c. onion/garlic mix

4 large peppers, assorted (1 red, 1 green, 1 yellow, 1 orange)

For filling: Brown chopped onion and garlic in a little olive oil and reserve 1/4 c. of mixture for sauce.  Parboil rice in boiling salted water for 10 minutes. Drain. Mix meats, seasonings, egg.  Add onion/garlic mix and rice.

For sauce: Mix all ingredients together and simmer for 15 minutes.

Stem peppers, cut in half lengthwise, remove seeds and membrane.  Rinse and drain. (You might want to parboil, although I didn't.)

Put a little sauce in bottom of oiled rectangular baking pan. Divide filling among pepper halves. Pour sauce over peppers.  (You will have sauce left over.) Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until tender, adding sauce or other liquid if needed.

The verdict: A very tasty filling and sauce, and not at all like Spanish rice.  The dish was suffused with the flavor of Central Europe and the Balkans.  The peppers were a little on the firm side, although the bright colors were preserved.  Next time, I might parboil the peppers, cover them completely in the sauce, or try the stovetop simmering method used in one of the cookbooks.

Update:  Eight months later, I did a makeover:  I parboiled the peppers and created a healthy turkey-kasha filling.  It was even better!  It's here, if you'd like to take a look.

Before Baking

Stuffed Pepper, Coleslaw, and Broccoli