CEIMB: Greek Style Stuffed Peppers or Cooking Disaster...you be the judge

The recipe this week was chosen by Ali of The Healthy Hostess. I was excited about a stuffed peppers recipe because the stuffed peppers I usually make tend to be very boring ...onions, ground turkey breast, squash, zucchini, salt pepper, red pepper flakes, and a little melted Swiss or mozzarella cheese. They are good, but not very exciting.

So, needless to say, I was excited about a new recipe that changed things up a bit. I even went out on a limb and bought bulger wheat. I still don't know what it is, but I am the proud owner of virtually an entire box of it!!

As for the recipe -- I used ground chicken because Publix was all out of ground turkey breast. I also substituted diced tomatoes for stewed tomatoes. I didn't even realize this was a substitution until my dear friend Peggy explained the difference to me the other day. Thanks Peggy! So come to find out I use and will continue using diced tomatoes in everything I make. Really, the diced v. stewed thing is something I just don't have time for! So, other than these 2 changes, I think I followed the recipe to a T. I made the peppers on Sunday night and got them all ready to go for baking on Monday night. Monday night I rushed home and added the tomatoes and feta and threw the tomatoes in the oven. 70 minutes passed, 90 minutes passed and at the 2 hour mark, I finally decided to call them done. They were brown on top and looked very delicious. Granted, cat food was starting to sound pretty good by that point too. So, I sliced into the pepper and started eating it. My first impression was that it was very bland -- nothing that some salt and pepper couldn't fix. I also thought that the meat mixture turned out a little dry and dense. So, even though it wasn't not my favorite stuffed pepper, it would fill a hollow space and I wasn't going to complain too much. That is until I realized that the meat mixture in the peppers was no where close to being cooked -- in fact it was still raw ground chicken! Great, I thought -- just what I need...salmonella. So, into the trash the peppers went.

I think I will stick to my boring old stuffed peppers recipe, because there was way too much disaster involved with this one for me to ever think about making it again. Plus, I usually cook everything before stuffing the peppers which eliminates the "still raw in the middle" possibility.

Thanks Ali for picking this recipe. I hope everyone else had more luck with their stuffed peppers than I did!

Luckily, for desert I had one last lava cake to eat! I will have to post a picture of this creation later! Oh, and no sickness to report after eating not just raw chicken, but raw ground chicken. Im counting my lucky stars!