Stuffed peppers

A red and a yellow pepper stuffed with egg noodles, top it off with some breadcrumbs for crunch and nicely shredded Parmesan cheese. Bake it off and your mouth will water....:)

A perfect comfort food for a perfect winter...:)

Let me start by mentioning that stuffed peppers as the name suggests is pretty versatile dish. You can pretty much stuff anything inside the peppers. You can stuff them with orzo, rice or may be a nice stuffing of boiled potatoes with a mixture of Indian spices. Variations are literally endless. 

A perfect dish to use your left brain....:)

So here's what I used-:

• 1 Cup of wide egg noodles
• 1 shallot
• 1 red and 1 yellow bell pepper
• 2 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
  
• 2 tablespoon of tomato paste ( Used store bought, you can also use tomato puree)
• Parmesan Cheese
• Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• Salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon canola oil

Step1:

Prepare the egg noodle- As per the instructions on the packet. 

Drain the noodles and keep it aside

Heads up:- Make sure your noodle are really shy to al-dente, because they are going to finish their cooking in oven later. 

Reserve the water before draining off the noodles. It's a nice starchy water which you can use later while making the sauce.

Step2:

Cut the top off of the peppers.

and also the bottoms, just so that the peppers will stand straight.

Step3:

Heat canola oil in a pan , add finely chopped shallots , Italian seasoning, followed by tomato paste.

Add some salt to taste and some freshly ground black pepper. Add some reserved starchy water from the step 1. Saute everything for a minute or so and then add the egg noodles you prepared in step 1. Turn off the heat, coat the noodles well with the sauce. Add some more starchy water if you feel to mix everything together.

Step4-

Take one bell pepper, place it firmly inside a loaf pan of any baking pan which has some height. (You need to pour some water or some stock around the peppers when you bake them in the oven. That is why you need height to the pan.)

After you place the peppers in the loaf pan, stuff them with the stuffing we made in step 3.

Make sure to stuff every bell pepper up to the top. 

Sprinkle some breadcrumbs on the top. This will make nice brown top and will add a crunch on bite.

Toss in some ( actually a lot..) sharply shredded Parmesan cheese which will melt while in the oven.

Step5:

Pour some water around the peppers. You can also use some chicken stock or vegetable stock if you want. That will enhance the flavor when the peppers bake. 

Cover the loaf pan with aluminium foil. 

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Place the pan in the middle rack. Bake it off for 40 minutes.

Check after 40, keep for few more minutes, if you fell the peppers aren't cooked yet. In that case 10 more minutes should do the trick.

Other way to cook the peppers-:

Instead of keeping them directly in to the oven, you can also cook the peppers after you cut the bottoms and tops off for about 10 minutes, and then stuff the filling and bake it off for 20-25 minutes.

Be very sure not to cook the egg noodles completely, just cook them for about 5-6 minutes in water, and allow to cook them later in the oven. It Will make the noodles too soggy if you cook them completely beforehand.

Enjoy stuffed peppers with  some rice or some nice grilled fish...:)