Guest Post - Stuffed Banana Pepper Bites

I was going to call them bacon-wrapped stuffed banana pepper bites, but then I was afraid that no one would actually read another word I wrote because they would only be thinking of bacon. Since I didn’t put bacon in the title I’m sure I have your full attention… well, at least until we get to the bacon part. [Editor’s note - that’s why I put the finished product picture at the end. It was either going to draw them in or completely make them shut down after seeing its mouth-watering goodness in photo form.]

This is our third summer in our house, and I finally managed to have a great kitchen garden. The funny thing about having a handful of plant degrees is that it doesn’t help me keep plants alive (they still require water, sunshine and tlc). No, I’m just really good when it come time for the post-mortem.

We planted cucumbers, a good assortment of herbs, a few types of tomatoes, and five pepper cultivars - the fancy word they teach you in plant school - and all but the cucumbers did pretty well. The fun thing about a kitchen garden is that sometimes you find yourself trying new recipes just based on your current harvest, and that’s exactly where these stuffed banana peppers came from. Take tomatoes, three kinds of peppers, and a ton of herbs, add company coming over that night, throw in a dash of Google searching for banana pepper recipes (thanks to my husband, Ken) and voila! you get this exciting idea.

Instead of a side dish, we made them as appetizers using our fresh banana, green, and jalapeno peppers and herbs from the garden. Rather than stuff the banana peppers whole, we cut them into bite-sized open-faced pieces. That changes the consistency of things, but it’s easier to handle and gives you a better stuffing-to-pepper ratio. For the stuffing I roughly followed the proportions listed (VERY light on the cheese), but substituted several ingredients, including basil, oregano and thyme for their herbs since 1) that’s what I grew and 2) it was an appetizer for an Italian meal. They were a huge hit - having the three types of peppers definitely gave a lot of flavor!

Here’s what I made (keep in mind that actual amounts are somewhat estimated - I generally don’t measure when making things like this):

Stuffed Banana Pepper Bites

About 6 banana peppers (assorted large-ish sizes)
About one cup of finely shredded Italian cheeses (you know, one of those six cheese blends you can buy at the grocery)
1 small tomato, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
At least 2 jalapeño peppers, diced
A small handful of basil, oregano and thyme, finely chopped
Salt, pepper, and your favorite spices to taste
Your favorite bacon (a little less than a pack)
Cut the peppers in half length-wise and remove the seeds. I kind of eyeballed it after that: if cutting it in half again across the middle made two bite-sized chunks then that’s what I did. If it was a bigger pepper, I would cut the half into thirds (giving me six bite-sized pieces per larger pepper; four for the smaller ones).

Combine cheese, tomato, onion, peppers, herbs and spices in a bowl. Spoon this mixture onto each banana pepper bite and wrap with about half of a bacon slices. The stuffing is going to want to jump out of the pepper, and you need enough bacon to hold it all in but not so much that it becomes a giant bacon ball (if you like giant bacon balls you should just make a bacon ball already). You’ll get the hang of it after a try or two. Place all of your little bacon-wrapped banana pepper bites on an oven sheet and put in the oven on broil. Watch them carefully. The original recipe said 4 minutes, but there was no way these guys were done that fast! Maybe I had really thick bacon, maybe they weren’t as close to the broiler as they should be, or maybe I just don’t like my bacon as raw as they do, but I’m sure you’re going to have your own set of bacon/oven/taste issues, so you should probably cook them to your own liking. Mine took a little over 10 minutes, but that might be because I kept opening the oven door to check on things (I know there’s a light, but poking seems a much more reliable method for testing “doneness”). And you’re done! It’s really cute to arrange them on a plate to serve them to your guests, but these disappeared so fast it felt like a waste of a clean plate. Just kidding. Mostly.

[Editor’s note - the sheer volume of living plants in the post brought a tear to my eye. Maybe that was the bacon as well. But on a more serious note, if you want to see more of Joy’s joyfulness (get it?), you can follow her on Instagram and Twitter (@joymbruce) and Pinterest (Joy M. Bruce). Do it!!]