Some Helpful Hints When Making Chorizo Stuffed Peppers  (see recipe above)

 I will revise my recipe to reflect something I recently learned about it.   In the meantime, if you copied the recipe, here are a couple of helpful hints.

CHORIZO

At the moment (August 2020), I am a shut in recovering from a major surgery so even driving a mile to our nearest Mexican grocer was not an option.  So, my dear wife Alice came up with a recipe which changes ground beef into chorizo.   Yes, I know chorizo is pork, but, once you spice it up, the exact animal that sacrificed a pound of flesh makes little difference

In this case, I used about ¾ lb of ground beef with the following spices.   I just dumped them into the ground beef dry, mixed it in and let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.   The spices are:                                                                              ½ tsp Aleppo pepper                                                                                                        ½ tsp chili powder                                                                                                              ¼ tsp garlic salt                                                                                                                  ¼ tsp black pepper                                                                                                              ½ tsp ground cumin                                                                                                          ¼ tsp ground cloves                                                                                                            ¼ tsp ground coriander

PEPPERS

I picked my peppers almost a month ago and even though I’ve made this recipe twice in the past month, I still had a half dozen left.  To my surprise, once they’ve spent a month in the refrigerator, and are just starting to wrinkle a bit, they are much easier to manage.  Cutting the top like a hinge was nearly impossible with a vine ripe fresh pepper.  Now, slightly spongy, they are very flexible which also makes it easier to clean the seeds out too.   No danger of cracking or splitting them.  So, as you can see by the picture, they were ideal for stuffing.

MILANESE RICE

This is great with lamb and if you have a couple of cups leftover, it is awesome in the stuffed pepper recipe. Here is the recipe:

Melt one stick of butter in a heavy frying pan. Add one cup of white rice and brown the rice. Make sure it is a nice rich golden brown color. Add one chopped onion and continue to cook until the onion is just starting to brown around the edges. Add one 10 1/2 oz can of beef consume and 5 1/2 ounces of water (2 cups total liquid). Cover and simmer until rice is soft and has absorbed the liquid about 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy in Good Health,                                                                                                      A. Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner