You may recall how I don’t cook anything…ever. Once again, though, I got it into my head that mayyybe I could try one simple little thing. But I should have known better than to open my heart to the kitchen and let chaos reign.
A few years ago, I saved a Facebook post with a recipe for pizza-stuffed bell peppers that looked so easy, even I could do it! When it came back up in my Memories the other day, I thought maybe I would actually give it a shot this time. I told my boyfriend to get ready, because sometime in the next few days, I was going to make dinner, but exactly what I was making would be a surprise.
Good Intentions
The plan was to make it while he was out for his afternoon walk. (I didn’t think he would agree to eat it unless he came back from his walk hungry and it was already hot, ready, and convenient and he could see it rather than just hear about it; hence the surprise.) I figured it was simple enough that I could have it all put together and in the oven by the time he came back. But first I decided to give it a trial run for lunch while I was home alone.
To be clear, I didn’t have an actual recipe–what I had was a video of the item being prepared. The only solid instructions it gave me were to set the oven to 350 and cook for 8-10 minutes. All the rest appeared to be up to me. But it didn’t seem to be the sort of dish where measurements had to be exactly right, so that didn’t scare me as much as you might expect.
Cheesy Questions
The original recipe required sauteing what appeared to be ground beef. Naturally, that was out of the question. So my creative spin on this recipe was to replace the protein with Mediterranean-style sardines out of the can. The onions, rather than chopping myself, I could buy pre-chopped from Publix. I wasn’t sure about the mozzarella–I could see that it was not the shredded kind, but the thick, fluffy, marshmallowy kind that comes on those little salad things that are like, a tomato slice, a leaf, a mozzamallow, and some balsamic. (I enjoy those salad things.)
It turns out that what I needed was called fresh mozzarella. But the slices, not the pearls. Somehow I ended up with the pearls. I don’t know if that was my fault or my Instacart shopper’s, and I’d rather not know, to be honest with you. But since I’d already decided this wasn’t an exact science, I figured I could make it work. Same deal for the regular-sized pepperonis I got instead of the mini ones the video showed.
Fresh Attempts
Overall, I wanted this recipe to be made with the freshest ingredients I had the patience and willpower for, so I bought fresh garlic that I could squeeze with the new garlic press I’d bought my boyfriend, rather than chop and cut up my fingers. I also bought some fresh basil.
It didn’t take too terribly long to mix up the sardines, pre-chopped onions, and pressed garlic. (I was not a fan of trying to clean out the garlic press, though.) I was daring enough to cut the caps off of the peppers and slice out their insides. That was all the cutting I did. I tossed the pepper caps into the yard, as the boyfriend and I often do with various produce to see it if will grow. (So far we’ve had some success with pineapples and celery.)
Smoky Disasters
I added the heaping spoonfuls of pizza sauce I’d seen in the video. I stuck the mozzamallow pearls in the sauce, layered on the pepperonis, and suddenly remembered that I had not preheated the oven. I set it to 350, and that’s when it happened.
Smoke immediately began billowing off of one of the burners. I screamed, and, as visions of house fires tore through my head, hastened to turn the oven back off.
I texted the boyfriend, and anyone else I could think of who might help without being too judgmental. After being reassured that it was okay and probably just something spilled on the burner, I wiped it off with a wet rag and turned the oven back on.
The oven heated back up to 350, I opened the door, and…
…As smoke poured out of the oven and into my face, the fire alarm started blaring, and in that moment I knew that my days of attempting to cook were over for good. I slammed the oven door shut, dropped my tray on top of the stove as carefully as possible, spilling my peppers in the process. I turned the oven off and ran to open the door to the outside, where the cold rain falling from the skies merged with the tears on my face.
Traumatic Experiences
This disaster had me crying for an hour. I mean, go figure–one of the very few times I’ve ever gotten up the nerve to cook something on my own, and some of my worst fears immediately came to fruition–whilst, of course, I was all alone with no idea what to do. And I’d been so excited to make a nice surprise for my boyfriend, who cooks for me all the time. (I’d also had only two hours of sleep the night before, so that might have had something to do with it.)
When some of the terror had died down two hours later (after one full hour of crying and a second hour of staring into space in horror), I returned to the peppers and just stuck them in the microwave for three minutes, instead. (I jumped out of my skin when I accidentally hit the wrong button and the fan started blasting.)
Happy Endings?
After all of that, I’d say the recipe turned out fairly well, except I discovered that I really don’t like red, yellow, or orange bell peppers and should have gone with green instead!
If there was going to be a next time, I’d use green peppers so as to avoid the blasphemous combination of sweet and savory that tortured my tongue. And then I imagine it’d be pretty darned good! But there won’t be a next time; after today’s trauma, my kitchen days are officially done.
Here’s the original recipe from Thrillist if you’d like to try it yourself and outdo my attempt in every possible way.
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