Fun-stuffed peppers

I don’t normally like making hors d’oeuvres, dumplings, or even cookies that require anything besides dropping, because I am lazy in this very specific respect.  But my advisor’s weekly “secret” seminar has treats (the speaker from the previous week brings treats for the following week), and I thought I’d try something crazy and wild.  So I bought a can of crescent roll dough (key to making the amazing easy cinnamon buns) and a bag of sweet mini peppers, and figured I’d figure out the rest the day before seminar.

I was surprised that I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted by googling, so here’s a Yen original recipe.  What actually happened was that I wanted to make pigs in a blanket, but then remembered we had a vegetarian in the seminar, so I bought the peppers instead.  These turned out AWESOME- the sweet peppers popped a bit, the paprika + pepper jack made it a little bit interesting, the cheesy filling was so creamy and offset perfectly the crispy buttery crescent roll dough.  I highly recommend.

I hope one day baby gets a tutor named Jack, so I can tell him to go pepper Jack with questions

There are two annoying things to do: one, seed the peppers.  I was lazy and just chopped off the tops to take out the seeds, but they’d look prettier if you left them on and cut a slit to pull out the seeds.  Two, fill the peppers.

Of course Jack won’t be useful for taking tests. Baby will just have to cr(e)am if he doesn’t study ahead of time

We’ll just want to fill his head up with knowledge

I used a regular knife to fill the peppers.  The filling was a block of cream cheese + a few slices of pepper jack cheese + paprika for color.  These would also be great with some sliced green onion, any other sliced cheese, and any other savory spice.  Using a mixer to whip the cream cheese was key for making the filling spreadable, and it also spread out the sliced cheese very well.

Third annoying thing that was less annoying because it meant we were close to done: wrapping the peppers in crescent roll dough.

But academics isn’t everything. I don’t want him to tear up if he messes up on a test. Just roll with the punches, baby!

Also I got to use our pizza cutter, which we never use!  I don’t know if we’ve ever used it on pizza.  Or made pizza.  Hmm I should make pizza!

I guess that’s what happens with kids: you just have to bundle them up and send them off into the world

These are both adorable and misshapen.  If you’re a fancy Pinterest-er who follows food blogs, I’m flattered you look at this and you should make these and make them more beautiful and tell me about it.  If you’re not a fancy Pinterest-er, you could make these and really impress people with them because they are so delicious and don’t need to be beautiful.  And they come out beautiful anyway!

Fun-stuffed peppers (Makes about 20 peppers, about 7 appetizer-sized servings.  The “about” is how many peppers come in your bag)

1 package of Pillsbury Crescent Roll Dough (or something similar)

1 bag of mini sweet peppers

4 oz cream cheese (half a block)

2 slices of cheese (I used pepper jack, but cheddar or gouda could also be good) [you could also grate some cheese]

1/2 tsp paprika (ideas for other seasonings: garlic salt, oregano, cilantro…)

Set the oven to 350.  Seed your mini peppers by slicing them the long way and scooping out the seeds w/knife, or just cutting off the tops (the seeds are connected to the tops).  You’ll still want them sliced the long way.

Use a mixer to beat the cream cheese w/cheese and paprika.  Use a knife to scoop a small amount of filling into each mini pepper.

Roll out the crescent roll dough.  Use a pizza cutter to cut each triangle into three slimmer triangles, or be lazy as I was above and just cut strips.

Wrap each pepper with a small triangle or strip of dough.  If there’s leftover dough, just press it onto a larger pepper.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until dough is golden brown.

Tags: cream cheese, savory