Market Mondays: Mashed potato stuffed bell peppers

The market was a lot of fun this weekend going with my parents. My mom wanted to stop and look at so many different vendors than K and I normally stop and look at.  My mom loved all the pottery and the soaps and candle vendors and my dad was a good sport hanging out with not one, but two extremely indecisive ladies. I picked up all my goodies and am looking forward to yummy week of market foods.

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We made this recipe last week but changed it just a little bit. I think this week we are going to use our peppers from this week in a pasta dish. But this dish was really simple and delicious. 

Mashed potato stuffed bell peppers:

• 2 bell peppers
• 2 1/2 pounds of your choice of potatoes (we used small yellow potatoes)
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 3 garlic cloves, minced  (we used 1 teaspoon granulated garlic instead of raw garlic)
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded Gouda cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Oven preheated to 350 degrees.

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the potatoes. Cook until tender, just barely falling apart.

2. Strain the potatoes and add them to a large mixing bowl along with the buttermilk, garlic, thyme, parmesan cheese,  salt and pepper. 

3. Mash the potatoes, use some of the reserved water if needed. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

4. Cut your bell peppers and half and seed them. 

5. Stuff your bell peppers with the mashed potatoes. You want to over stuff them but you don't want the filling to be too compact.

6. Once a bell pepper half is stuffed, place it in a baking dish and top it with some of the shredded Gouda cheese. Be generous with the cheese, it's Gouda after all. You can never have too much.

7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and place the baking dish full of stuffed peppers on the bottom rack. Cook until the Gouda cheese is melted and just begins to brown. The peppers should be slightly blistered

In our version, we never use water in our mashed potatoes, just lots of butter, buttermilk and salt and pepper to taste.

We also didn't have any gouda cheese to top them. I'm not a big fan of cheese, so it wasn't a huge disappointment. Plus I love mashed potatoes - so it was a win, win with me. But if you are a cheese lover- definitely add it!

Only cooking the peppers after they have been stuffed left them a tad on the crunchy side. I think if we make them again we may cook them a bit prior to stuffing them, then stuff them and cook them the rest of the way so that they will be softer.

They were super yummy, and it was actually my first time eating a pepper. (I am a super, super fussy eater - but I'm trying new things!)