Goat Cheese Stuffed Peperoncinis

We went to Thanksgiving dinner hosted by Brian's cousin and I decided on a whim to bring a little appetizer made up of my two favorite things, something pickled paired with any kind of cheese. So I invented these. I did some research and found that someone else had made them as well but they didn't use goat cheese and they included a sauteed bell pepper and onion mix. I suppose that would be ok too, but I like my recipe better.

Yummy!

 The receipe goes like this-

What you will need

1. 32 oz jar of Golden Peperoncini (pickled peppers) mild or hot your preference, and the bigger the peppers are the easier they will be to stuff

2. 4 oz of softened or room temperature cream cheese.

3. 4 oz of softened goat cheese, your choice of style or brand

4. 1/4 cup of crumbled bacon

5. 1/4 cup of grated sharp cheddar cheese

6. 1/8 cup of chopped green onions or chives

7. 1 tbsp of milk

8. Flat leaf Italian parsley for garnish (optional)

What you will do

Fry up the bacon in a pan and do what ya gotta do to crumble it and set it aside. Do a fine chop with the green onions and set them aside as well.  In a bowl mix the cream cheese, goat cheese and milk till its a smooth consistancy kinda like frosting on a cake, add more milk if you need to. Throw in the bacon once its cooled off but save about a tbsp to garnish, throw in the grated cheddar, as well as the green onions again save some of the onions as a garnish. 

Next, get a plastic sandwich bag, the zip-close bags work the best, spoon the mixture into the bag and squish it down to one of the corners, clip the corner, make sure its big enough that the bacon pieces can fit through and set aside.  Grab your peppers and one by one make a slit from the stem length-wise to the tip of the pepper, careful not to slice the pepper all the way through to the bottom part (leave the stem attached btw). Once you've sliced all the peppers, grab your cheese filling and start piping it into each pepper. Note: This is monotonous work but it's so worth it. Once the peppers are filled and arranged on your platter sprinkle with the left over bacon and onions and garnish with parsley(optional). Its probably a good idea to cover them and put them in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until you are ready to serve them. 

Enjoy! 

Oh yeah, and I had a bit of the filling left over so we enjoyed it on crackers the next day, would also be good in celery.