Little Peppers – Cheese stuffed Capsicums

As you may have noticed from my Monday Harvest posts I’m growing a fair few peppers this year.  Whilst the capsicums have been horrendously slow – I still haven’t harvested a capsicum from any of the plants planted this season (all my harvest has been from overwintered plants).  I really need to change variety as I should have had crops by now.  The chillies on the other hand have been wonderful, producing endless harvests with the varieties staggering themselves nicely so that when one finishes another starts.

I recently acquired another capsicum plant from Mum & Dad who are hoping I can overwinter it for them, as they get frost but I don’t.  Called Mini Mama (capsicum annuum) it produces small sweet red fruits which are about 2cm in diameter.    I have found the fruits the perfect size to be stuffed with cheese.  The plant was purchased as a seedling at the large green superstore and I’d love to know if anyone grows anything similar and where they get seed as although we have saved seed it was in an area with a lot of other capsicums and chillies so may have crossed.

The Mini Mama fruits are the round ones pictured below:

As the plant had a few decent sized fruit on it I decided to stuff them, and some chillies, for lunch.  I used a few jalapenos and some of the Scotch Bonnet chillies for stuffing.  I really must find out the Latin name for what I am calling Scotch Bonnet as that isn’t what they are know as internationally but it is what they were called on the seed packet.  They are far, far milder than what I would normally call Scotch Bonnet – more like a jalapeno in temperature.

Peppers stuffed with Cheese

• 200g mild chillies or baby sized capsicums
• 150g feta
• 2 tblspns cream cheese or ricotta (optional – if you are using a mild smooth feta you won’t need it)
• 1.5 tblspns soft herbs finely chopped (I used basil, parsley & chervil today)
• Olive oil from drizzling

Heat the oven to 200.  Slice the top off the peppers and remove seeds.

Mix together the cheeses and herbs.  Season.  Fill the peppers with the cheese mixture (if you have some left over it makes a lovely omelette filling).  Place in a baking dish.  Drizzle over some olive oil.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the peppers have softened.

Serve either hot or cold as a canape or with other salads/mezze.

To see what others are eating this week head over to the Gardener of Eden’s place for Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard, or to Greenish Thumb for the Garden to Table Challenge.