Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Recipe File / Urban Farming Urban Farming, Ch. 16: Finally, a Use for Banana Peppers
Posted by Carrington Fox on Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 6:12 AM
Following up on an earlier Bites thread that may as well have been titled "What Good is a Banana Pepper, Anyway?" I have an answer.
The solitary plant that yielded a lone comma-shaped fruit a few weeks back recently rained down peppers. The expression "coals to Newcastle" came to mind, as did my father's saying: "The bad news is it tastes like shit, but the good news is there's enough for tomorrow."
Necessity being the mother of invention--and my necessity was to feed four adults with a bunch of near-their-sell-by-date ingredients and a half-dozen banana peppers that were so big they reminded me of the Gilligan's Island episode when they grow the super-sized radioactive carrots--I came up with this extremely precise recipe:
Mix some cream cheese with some feta and some bacon crumbles. Cut tops off peppers and extract seeds. Somehow or other, jam cream cheese-feta-bacon mixture into peppers. (Do not let guests see you do this--it's not pretty.) Place peppers in greased baking dish and cook at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.
The good news is it was fantastic, the bad news is I'm out of peppers. Hint, hint.
Comments (7)
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I, too, am yielding dozens of peppers, but the tomatoes are saaaad. Try cheese and chorizo with a little bit of onion, also baked like above...yum! We've also sliced them up to add to pizza.
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Gah that sounds good. How did people eat them? With a fork and knife, or pick up and pop into mouth?
I chose banana peppers over bell plants because they yieled more fruit months sooner on a smaller plant, are sweet, turn red more quickly, and don't need to be peeled for roasted pepper salad. Two banana peppers substitute for a big bell in creole sauce. And do on -- I'd love to hear what other people do with them.
Banana peppers are perfect simply fried with a few seasonings. Remove the seeds and split lengthwise (or quarter if very large). Fry in olive oil with salt, pepper and Italian herbs until brown and toasty. As they near the toasty stage, sprinkle liberally with red wine vinegar. Continue to cook a few more minutes. These are absolute heaven on an egg sandwich or with sausages, or a meatball sub or nearly everything. They even work as a side to pasta, etc. I fried four skillets full on Sunday with my crop.
The original purpose of the vinegar was to cut the heat if using hot peppers, but it is still a perfect addition even if the peppers are mild. This recipe came from an Italian friend of my husband when he lived in Cleveland OH and the friend was recently from the "Old Country". We call them "Catalano Peppers" in honor of his sharing the recipe.
I found a recipe for stuffed banana peppers where you stuff them with cheddar cheese, diced tomatoes, jalapenos and then wrap it all in bacon and bake in the oven. I thought it turned out quite scrumptious.
TobintheGnome- mine too! wish I knew if I could eat them safely....
I grilled some stuffed jalapenos over the weekend and think I'll do the same thing with the bag of banana peppers my co-worker just gave me today. Mixed up some cream cheese, goat cheese, diced tomatoes and then sprinkled with chopped cilantro- very tasty.
