Blue Cheese — Bacon Stuffed Peppers — What You Plant, You Eat

First week of May. The peppers went in the ground Monday. Twelve pepper plants — six bell, four poblano, two Anaheim. The bed had been ready for two weeks waiting on the soil temperature. Wednesday the bean trellises went up. Thursday I planted Three Sisters in the back bed — corn, beans, squash, in the proper sequence. The corn first, the beans when the corn was up, the squash a couple weeks after the beans. This year I'm doing two varieties of corn — a sweet for fresh eating and a flour corn for grinding into meal. The flour corn is a heritage Cherokee variety from the Elohi seed library that Hannah has been excited about. The seeds came from a family in McAlester whose grandmother saved them from a planting in the 1960s.

The wild onion gathering is over. The bottom by the creek is now all leaf, the tops gone tough. The window is closed for another year. By June the leaves will yellow and drop. By July the patch will be invisible. By next March it will be back. The cycle is a year and the cycle is a lifetime. I've gathered wild onions thirty times. I've never thought once that I might gather them again is a question. The question doesn't come up. You gather them or you die. There's no third option for me.

Caleb Saturday — and he came with the woman. Her name is Miriam. He brought her to the property with him for the first time. They came at noon. Miriam is fifty-two, Cherokee, from Stilwell originally, divorced for ten years, two grown sons, eight years sober from alcohol. She has a steady warmth. She and Hannah liked each other within ten minutes. She and Caleb stood close to each other but not on each other, the way two people who know how to do this thing carefully stand. Caleb showed Miriam the workshop. He showed her his first knife rack. She looked at it for a long time. She said: this is well-made. He said: thank you. He said it the way a man says thank you when the right person says the right thing about a thing he made. We had lunch on the porch. Pulled pork from the freezer, bean bread, cole slaw Hannah had made. Miriam ate and talked and laughed easily. She said before they left: I want to come back. I said: come back. She and Caleb hugged at the truck. They drove out together. Hannah came over and put her hand on my shoulder and said: that one's good. I said: I think so too.

We ate pulled pork and bean bread on the porch that Saturday, but the peppers were on my mind — twelve plants in the ground, the soil temperature finally right, the season opening up the way it does when you stop waiting and just act. Miriam said she wanted to come back, and I thought: when the bells come in, I’ll make these. Blue cheese and bacon stuffed peppers are the kind of thing you make for people you want to feed well — not fancy, not fussy, just honest food that says you paid attention to what was growing and what was worth the work.

Blue Cheese & Bacon Stuffed Peppers

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 large bell peppers (any color), halved lengthwise and seeded
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
• 8 strips bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
• 1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp plain breadcrumbs (optional, for topping)
• 1 tbsp olive oil (for brushing peppers)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13 baking dish.
2. Prepare peppers. Halve peppers lengthwise, remove seeds and membranes, and brush cut sides lightly with olive oil. Arrange cut-side up in the prepared baking dish.
3. Make the filling. In a medium bowl, beat softened cream cheese until smooth. Fold in crumbled blue cheese, bacon, green onions, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. Mix until well combined.
4. Fill the peppers. Divide the filling evenly among the pepper halves, pressing it in gently and mounding slightly. If using breadcrumbs, sprinkle a pinch over each filled pepper.
5. Bake. Bake uncovered for 22–25 minutes, until the peppers are just tender and the filling is set and lightly golden on top.
6. Rest and serve. Let peppers cool for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with additional sliced green onions if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 11g | Fat: 25g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 520mg