BLACK BEANS IN BELL PEPPERS
06 september 2006

july's heat (& power outage) gave way to a fairly mild august, but the damage was done: i was too beat to go grocery shopping. i thought i'd ease back into my project with something simple like stuffed peppers, which i made for the first time several years ago with my cousin jennifer, who at the time was coming out of seven or eight years of being a vegetarian. we used ground turkey & rice & onions in green bell peppers, & i remember being amazed at how fancy such a simple dish could seem. this was actually my first attempt at recreating a veg version of this recipe.

INGREDIENTS
2 teaspoons canola or vegetable oil
1 large white onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno pepper or anaheim chili, cored, seeded, & minced
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
2 cups cooked black turtle beans, drained & rinsed
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 large firm red bell pepper, roasted & peeled
1 large firm yellow bell pepper, roasted & peeled
salsa

METHOD
heat the oven to 350F. squirt a shallow baking dish with nonstick spray or lightly grease with unsalted butter.

heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, swirling the pan to coat the bottom. add the onion, garlic, jalapeno or anaheim chili, cilantro, cumin, chili powder, & oregano & sauté, stirring often, until the onion softens, about 8 minutes. stir in the vinegar & beans. reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the skillet, & cook, stirring often, until the beans are very tender, about 20 minutes. using the back of a wooden spoon, mash the beans.

transfer to a mixing bowl, & stir in the cheddar & parmesan cheese. fill each pepper half with an equal amount of the bean mixture & place in the prepared baking dish. cover loosely with foil & bake until set, about 20 minutes. remove the foil & return the peppers to the oven to brown the tops, about 5 minutes more. serve with salsa.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
forgot to buy cilantro. my bad.

ditto cheddar & parm, but i had some so-called "mexican blend" cheese in the fridge & also part of a block of jack with jalapenos, so i subbed those cheeses in. FYI, i chose the anaheim chili over the jalapeno b/c, according to the produce department at dierberg's, it's rated at 3 scovilles (instead of 5, like a jalapeno), & i thought it might be a nice change.

otherwise, followed the recipe pretty exactly. i tried a new method for roasting peppers that involved, yes, the broil setting on the oven & NO oil (which spattered so scandalously last time i roasted something that i set off the smoke detector three times!), & then i shoved the pepper halves into a paper bag & stuck the bag in the freezer for ten minutes & holy cow, they were so much easier to peel sans oil (& i didn't burn my fingers, either!).

this recipe basically boiled down to the stuff you'd put in a bean burrito, minus the tortilla. couldn't really go wrong -- cumin + chili powder + oregano is basically taco seasoning, after all -- but i will admit that they looked kind of yucky, especially b/c the peppers apparently weren't firm enough (although the roasting is really what caused them to lay flat in the pan).

i thought it tasted fine, but i apparently won't make it again; daniel amended his verdict of "nothing special" to "unappealing," & didn't finish his.

all in all, an inauspicious return to OMGSNAX: THE SNACKENING.

"Black Beans in Bell Peppers" from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook: Your Guide to the Best Foods on Earth by Diana Shaw, 1997.