couscous and feta-stuffed peppers
But as we’re in the midst of NaBloPoMo meaning that I won’t have to see these poorly-lit, blurry and color-jinxed photos on top for more than a day, let’s dig in, shall we? Because really, you should make these stuffed peppers. If anything could convert a stuffed pepper hater, it would have to be this. The filling was so good, possibly a new favorite couscous dish, that we ate the extras (there was a bit) freely and eagerly. As it makes four peppers, it’s the perfect two-night meal and they keep wonderfully in the fridge. For the feta component, we’ve developed a strong liking for both French and Bulgarian fetas – they’re a little softer and less salty than their readily-available Greek counterparts, and enmeshed wonderfully with their surroundings. I also added a few tablespoons of tomato paste to the mix, because I love it, and because it helped all the flavors come together. Ugly picture be damned, I want more of this right now. (See how this exercise has forced me to grow?)
The second cringe-inducing, color-warped picture is of something for a more niched palate: pickled red onions. After making giardiniera, which I confess, did little for this not very pickle-smitten girl, I wanted to focus on something I knew we could love equally. The recipe is a cinch, cinch cinch, makes the prettiest pink jar of rings and keeps for weeks and weeks. However, the onion flavor was a little too drained for me, and next time, I would skip the first step. Otherwise, as a condiment at a barbecue or a little something-something for your salad, these are an unusual treat.
And now, I will spend the remainder of this gray, soaked, damp-wool suit panted but otherwise terrific (Team Britney, like you have to ask) afternoon dreaming of steamy soups and watching the news reels, wide-eyed.
Couscous and Feta-Stuffed Peppers
Adapted from Epicurious
Vegetable-oil cooking spray
1 1/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2/3 cup couscous
4 large bell peppers, mixed colors
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
6 ounce zucchini, quartered lengthwise then sliced across thinly
6 ounce yellow squash, quartered lengthwise then sliced across thinly
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
15 ounces canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 ounces crumbled feta cheese (about 1 cup)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a small baking dish with cooking spray. Bring the broth to a boil in a saucepan, add the couscous, cover the pan and remove it from the heat. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut the stems and top half inch off the bell peppers and scoop out the seeds and membranes. Boil trimmed peppers for 5 minutes*, then drain them upside down. Heat oil in a nonstick skillet. Add onion, zucchini, yellow squash, fennel seeds, oregano, and salt. Cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until vegetables are softened. Remove from heat and stir in the tomatoes, chickpeas and tomato paste. Using a fork, scrape the couscous into the skillet and toss with the vegetables. Stir in the crumbled feta. Place peppers upright in the baking dish and fill them with couscous. Bake 15 minutes. Serve immediately.
* A reviewer noted that they skipped this step, and the extra dishes, by pre-roasting the peppers until they were soft, then stuffing them and finishing up the baking time. I didn’t do it this way, but am sure it would work.
Pickled Red Onions
Adapted from Epicurious
2 red onions, sliced
1 cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
Blanch* 2 sliced red onions in a small saucepan of boiling water to cover for 1 minute and drain in a colander. Then return them to the pan and add a cup of cider vinegar, a teaspoon of salt, and just enough cold water to barely cover the onions. Bring to a boil over high heat and simmer the onions 1 minute. Transfer the onions and brine to a glass jar and chill. The onions will turn the color of a pink piñata and will get crisp as they cool. They’ll keep for weeks in the refrigerator.
* If you want to retain more of an onion-y flavor, you might want to skip this step. Next time I will and see if it works the same.











This recipe sounds awesome. Do you think it would work with any other cheese as I can’t eat feta?
I think the pink pickled onions are pretty!
I read daily, love your recipes, but never comment. So here’s my first: I am LOVING NaBloPoMo! You must be exhausted from all the hours of cooking and writing, but it’s been so much fun to have new posts to read, new pictures to look at, and new recipe ideas daily.
Thanks!
What’s wrong with those pictures? I think they’re lovely. Especially because I LOVE stuffed peppers.
(Weird, I was JUST thinking I should give stuffed peppers a go two days ago but my oven is broken, so I had to push that thought out of my head…)
But first: I know we don’t know each other at all, but get the f* out of here. No, seriously, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I clicked over here like I do every day, and I saw the picture up top and literally stopped and stared for a good two minutes. I am LOVING that picture and you don’t like it?! How dare you insult my taste! Just kidding about that last line, but the picture is amazing! Blurry? Unless you’re being extremely facetious, in which case, err, oops. But that picture gives me the whole sense of stuffed peppers! The 2nd picture is excellent as well, but at that point I’d already read how much you hated the first so I was upset already. Oy.
hahahaha I have to agree with the other commenters, I mean, I looked at the first picture and my first thought was “wow, now that´s something I wanna eat”. In fact, I´ll be buying the ingredients I´m missing sometime this week and making that as soon as possible, it looks incredible, and with those ingredients, it must be. Now, about the feta, which other cheese would you recommend based on the end flavor you get? I COULD buy some feta, but it is ridiculously expensive here, so I wanna try and replace it with some other strong cheese. Gruyere maybe?
Your stuffed peppers – I understand – The pictures are like a day when you aren’t feeling so good about yourself yet others say how “cute” you look and tell you they just “love” your sweater and you think “really, are they serious?!?” … Perhaps something like that, no?
I love peppers – The “H” doesn’t – He never has – This I will make for him and see what he thinks. Since he’s the chef he will always try anything and everything so at least I have a chance!
I’m feeling the picture love as well; the peppers put my beloved stroganoff leftovers at hand to shame. Pout. For what it’s worth, I kind of like seeing imperfect shots, although I have yet to spot the imperfection, untrained eye that I have. It kind of gives hope to me as a learner, if that makes any sense.
Oh my god. That last shot makes me want to throw my camera down a well. Gorgeous.
Wow, if that’s a bad picture of peppers, I may as well give up now! Don’t be so hard on yourself. I just discovered your blog last week and I come back daily just to see the pictures…it’s pure food porn! Love it. Perhaps you’ve posted this info before, but what do you take your photos with, and what’s your secret?
oh GOD i love pickled red onions!!
they go fabulous with a mexican spiced steak or grilled pork
YUM, YUM, YUM!!!
oh, and skipping the blanching step DOES make the flavor better, and leaves them crunchier too
see, you’ve got me all flusttered in excitement :-)
I’ve never commented on your site before – but it just absolutely make me drool. This NaBlaPoMo thing is killing me though – I can’t keep up with reading all the posts! Keep it up though – I love what your doing.
Changing the subject ever so slightly, did you see the “no knead bread recipe” in the NYTimes today? It does seem like a loooooot of patience, but according to the article, it achieves a professional outcome and *drum roll* it can be cooked in a le creuset pot lol
Since I have yet to develop such patience and I don´t have a heavy pot like that, I´m gonna have to let you try it first ;)
Here are the links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=a25918d1aead20f6&ex=1163134800
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
does the blanching take the bite out of the onion? these look good but i wouldn’t want to eat just onions if they were too strong- i guess i don’t know what to eat them with. suggestions? i agree with the others- the pictures look good. too bad this page isn’t scratch and sniff.
I’ve made those stuffed peppers, and I agree that they are awesome. Instead of pre-roasting or boiling, though, I simply put them in a glass baking dish, covered with plastic wrap (poked some holes with a fork to vent), and microwaved for three or four minutes. Worked like a charm.
First, I think the photos totally made the dishes look appetizing. And bawdy penguin, I’m guessing that blanching the onions will indeed reduce the bite. There’s a cold dish I make in the summer with cannellini beans, Italian tuna canned in olive oil and red onions. If I rinse the chopped onions in cold water first, it really calms them down.
Your photographs are always beautiful. I love your website, it makes me feel good inside, like Martha Stewart’s site used to.
Deb, I love the daily entries! Keep it up girl! You are an inspiration to us all…cooks and non, writers and non…don’t stop!!!
Lori – I’m sure it would. Is it a goat cheese issue or just feta? If not, I’d suggest a soft chevre; otherwise, I’m sure you can replace it with whatever cheese you normally like.
Rachel – Thank you.
Elissa – Oddly, not very exhausted, though I’m sure this will jinx me. But, I’m glad people are liking it. It’s odd, because when I have to post, say when I under a contract that stipulates a certain amount per week, I find it impossible. By crazed choice? No problem! (Yet.)
M – Okay, now I sound like I was fishing for compliments. I swear, I wasn’t. I just didn’t like the inaccurate color on the red pepper or the blurriness on the red onions. Still don’t, despite all the nice people chiming in their defense.
Yvo – Ditto on the above. Sorry, I’m just not liking the picture, I know it could be worse, but I will always know it can be better. I don’t need to be perfect all the time. (Quit laughing. Quit it.)
Marce – Thanks. I think what works about the feta is that it’s not very melty, so I’d be concerned about a cheese too oily or waxy that would break down completely. But, I’m sure nothing would actually taste BAD in there, so run with it. Use what you’ve got!
Tammy – I was going to begin this entry with the caveat that I hated stuffed peppers too (especially the green ones, blech!) but then I realized that’s how I begin like half my posts and it was getting dull. I do have one other stuffed pepper recipe I like, my mother-in-law’s, but I’ll get to that when I finally make it with measurements.
RA – Mmm, stroganoff. Yeah, didn’t work. Sorry. I like imperfect pictures too, I like smears of sauce and messy countertops. I just don’t like blurry. Ack, I’ll shut up about these pictures now. Really, I’m over it!
Ombra – Okay, that one I like. I just wanted to end with a fall picture, as the leaves are rapidly disappearing.
Cat – I actually just updated the photo part of the About page to include more info. Hope that answers your Qs.
Ann – Hooray! The pickle lover comes forward. I trust your advice fully. You think it would taste as good with plain old vinegar? The cider taste came through more than I’d expected.
Lisa – Thank you!
Marce – I saw it! I’m SO on it, as soon as I lose some of the bread already stuffing our freezer. That said, I love kneading and I think I’ll miss it. But, those tricks about the long rising and the lower amounts of yeast we talked about here, didn’t we? (I feel like a school teacher, seeing if we’re learning anything.)
Bawdy Penguin – It did/does, so leave that step in if you want the bite gone. But, it wasn’t the lack of bite that bothered me, it was the diluted onion flavor, barely noticeable in the end-product. I’m sure that even if you skipped the first step, the bite of the onion would be long gone before you even taste them. It disappears quickly among other ingredients.
Ella – When I want pieces of red onion in a salad, I either chop them much earlier, so their ow-bite drains a little, or soak them in some cold water for a few minutes. Works well, too, especially when the onion is so farmer’s market fresh, the smell could gouge your eyes out!
Terry – Ah, exactly what you said! A quick rinse totally does the trick.
Shawn – Aw. What happened between you and Martha?! It wasn’t the artichokes, was it?
Married Girl – Thanks, too much.
Color-sorting? Really? I would have taken you for an alphabetizer type, myself. Pickling scares me just a little bit, but I’m all about stuffing peppers!
Yum – you have great taste in food – I want to make almost everything you post. The pickled onions reminds me of a dish I made for Thanksgiving last year – red onion and cranberry chutney – it was divine, and I think it was also from epicurious.
I know what you mean, I just made the most beautiful cheesecake that was really non-photogenic. Too bad it will never see the blogosphere. It just made its way into my stomach, which I guess isn’t too bad.
Oooh, the answer to my low-fat vegetarian prayers!! I think I know what I’m cooking this weekend! And giggling soooo hard over the food porn comment. Too funny and too true.
I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on us because you don’t think these photos are worthy! I definitely have to disagree with you!
Wow, these look yummy. I wish my photos looked half as nice as yours. I will try this recipe because my mom used to make an awful stuffed green pepper recipe and it turned all of my siblings off stuffed peppers. This one just might redeem things.
WTF? That is just mean. I am so hungry……….
How do you make the peppers stand up in the baking dish?
Kirs – Oh, no. It’s all aesthetics, no logic, with me. See how well-adjusted I am?!
Maggie – That chutney recipe sounds great. I want to do something on cranberry sauces very soon. Do you have a link to it?
JenJen – You’re nuts. I LOVE your photos. You cannot deprive your readers that cheesecake!
Traci – I aim to please. Vegetarian at home, baked goods for elsewhere is the theme these days!
Brilynn – Yeah, I’m nuts. But, the peppers are awesome.
Erika – Yes, I always hated the green ones, also the mystery-stuffed ones. This is none of that, promise.
Jocelyn – Aw. But it has carbs!
Another Deb – Ah, I forgot to mention. I beveled the bottoms of the peppers ever-so-slightly. (See the things I forget when I wait weeks and weeks to post things?) They stood up, but then they stuck a little, so next time I’d lightly spritz the bottom of the casserole dish with Pam before setting them on their beveled bottoms.
oh yes! I usually use bog standard old white distilled vinegar. Durn good stuff, in my humble opinion!
Blogging everyday!!! Please give up the idea your photos aren’t perfect. If I drool, they’re perfect and believe me I drool.
The peppers and onions are fabulous!
Stuffed peppers are so low-carb. Just take the rice out. And those onions look just like the ones on the Dumont Burger–the burger so good that they had to open another Dumont that only sells the burger, on Bedford. OMG my mouth is watering….
I just discovered your site and I’m drooling, just looking at the pictures.
Wow. That looks amazing. I’m making this colored peppers for today, no doubt about it!
My family does something very similar to this but we don’t add crumbled feta cheese. Your recipe adds a whole new dimension to stuffed peppers.
My partner was turned off stuffed peppers and wouldn’t eat them for years because his ex wife used to make dreadful ones stuffed with mmince. I recently made some similar to these anyway but with rice instead of couscous and a slightly different mix of vegetables in the filling and with the fetta on top instead of through the mix and now he even let me try this one! I love your recipes so much! This one is, as always, delicious! Thank you!
Again-amazing.
Finding your blog has made me discover my love for cooking and baking and I’m becoming the good cook in my family. There hasn’t been one of those since 1999 when my grandma passed away.
Thank you for all the recipes.
I love your blog, I love the food, and I may even venture to say I love you a little.
Ha.
I have just tried this recipe. Even though I left out the fennel and the squash it’s absolutely amazing. I think I found a new favorite.
Thank you for putting it up on the website. I will definitely try more of your recipes.
=)
Hi Deb!
I just stumbled upon your website last night and i love it!! I will be trying the stuffed peppers tonight for my husband. :)
Perfect- I’m going to have these with simply grilled lamb chops!
These were easy and delicious! I pre-baked the bell peppers for 20 minutes and used whole wheat couscous. Served with a big salad and good wine.