Stuffed Poblanos

I'm relatively new to peppers. Rather, any peppers outside of the red, green, orange common lot - chile peppers to be more specific. I always thought they were H-O-T, as in super spicy. I am slowly but surely learning to appreciate spicy dishes where whole new realms of recipes await me. Steve and Olivia, our hosts from our last farm visit to The Farmer and the Cook, were "hot" on all of their new peppers, which we got to taste in the field. I was taken aback. These peppers were not spicy, rather gloriously sweet!

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Coincidentally, our cook/guide Gerri, suggested we pick up a copy of the Summer 2010, Edible Santa Barbara magazine. We picked up a free copy at our farmer's market visit the next morning and what lay before us, but a beautiful recipe for Poblanos Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Shrimp, with an additional recipe for a Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.  Oh Yum.  I had to try it.  We loaded up on peppers for dinner.

As the recipe is in Edible Santa Barbara, which they pulled from Edible Phoenix and after a little research, I've come to realize that it's in the new Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods cookbook, I thought I'd just link you to some other kind soul that has typed it all up. Thank you, The Daily Green (recipe here).

We made a few adjustments (left out the shrimp) as my taste buds are still getting used to food from the sea.  Progress is being made however. Rob and I went to sushi the other night and we were actually able to split real sushi orders!  This is very new for me, and Rob was giddy with joy! "Why sushi?" you may ask to a non-seafood eating person such as myself. Well, I absolutely love the ambiance of a fast paced sushi restaurant. And, I happen to love veggie sushi rolls and apparently now, a little Albacore. We prefer to sit at the bar and watch the chef's fast hands at work. I had a momentary conversation with our sushi chef, all the while he prepared two beautiful plates of a variety of nigiri sushi that were taken away the instant he placed them up on top of the glass case. Speed food artistry at work right in front of us.

Back to peppers. We didn't have a few things on hand for the pepper recipe so we made substitutions and I don't think we missed a thing, personally. Please add the shrimp or meat or anything you'd like to throw in for taste or texture. I think it's a great base idea of a recipe to adjust to your liking. Once you start stuffing, it's hard to stop! Rob and I happen to love the Soy Chorizo from Trader Joes. We use it to make "meat" sauces for pizzas, pastas, we us it in tacos and even put it in our stuffed peppers. Easy enough to saute a bit up before adding it to the "stuff" mixture for a quick bake. We used feta and cheddar instead of the called for goat cheese and Panela or Monterey Jack. I just don't think you can go wrong with cheese here.
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We also roasted up our first parsnip of the season with some carrots and baby potatoes that we had on hand. I've personally never had a parsnip in my home - that I can remember. What a nice surprise. The dish was a lovely trio of flavors. I decided that I liked the parsnip's sweet flavor and potato like texture the best out of the three.  
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Anyone else have a favorite "stuffed" recipe!? I have one coming up for acorn squash, I can't wait for winter squash season!