No Cook Stuffed Peppers

This is a dish that requires no cooking, as it is a good way to use already cooked ham. Bright red bell  peppers have lots of Vitamin A and Vitamin C and you simply remove the tops of the peppers, the seeds and the pithy ribs.

For the cream cheese, you can use the low calorie or low fat type, if you'd like, but the thing to do is to have it somewhat softened. You can let it sit out to come to room temperature, unless you live within in an igloo inside the Arctic Circle; in which case, bringing it to room temperature likely won't help, or you can put it into a bowl and pop it into the microwave for maybe 10 to 12 seconds. You want to be able to have the cheese soft enough to mix the other ingredients into it without having to rent a cement mixer; on the other hand, you don't want it to be almost liquid, although you'll be putting the finished peppers into the refrigerator to have the cream cheese firm up again. You can adjust the amount of filling ingredients a little, if you'd like, as I've made these to just give a basic guideline. One other thing, fresh herbs are pretty easily available in stores today, so get some fresh thyme to use. Dried thyme is great in soups, stews and gravies, because it has hot liquid to soften it, but in this dish, dried thyme could have some sharp and pointed stems that will not be fun to bite into, as in "YEEOW!" 

Ingredients (4 to 6 servings):  

3 large red bell peppers

1/2 cup finely chopped already cooked ham

1/4 cup white Cheddar cheese, chopped or shredded

3 green onions, chopped (including green part)

12 green and black olives, sliced

3 tablespoons finely chopped pickles

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves 

1 1/2 cups cream cheese, softened

1 or 2 teaspoons milk or cream

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt 

mustard and horseradish for serving

Cut the tops off of the peppers and remove all seeds and and the whitish colored ribs or veins inside the pepper (it's called pith). In a bowl, add the softened cream cheese and 1 teaspoon milk or cream. Use an electric hand mixer to whip the cheese. If needed, add another teaspoon of milk or cream and whip. Now add the other ingredients; mix carefully, but well with a large spoon; this can take a little time. Spoon the mixture into each pepper, pressing it down with the spoon so that it is tightly packed in. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours, if you are in a hurry, or preferably several hours otherwise. Cut the peppers into 1/2 to 1 inch slices for serving. Serve with mustard and horseradish on the side and I cut off the pepper parts around the stems and use them to garnish the pepper slices.  

 

 With some grainy mustard and horseradish ...

WORD HISTORY:

Icicle-This is a compound word formed from "ice" ^ and the addition of what was once spelled "ikel." This second part goes back to Indo European "eyhso" meaning, "frost, solidified water from cold." This gave Old Germanic "jeykilaz," which meant, "piece or chunk of ice," "seemingly" also with the secondary notion of  "cone or wedge shaped." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "gicel" (likely pronounced with a beginning "gy" or even "y" sound),^^ meaning, "piece of ice, icicle." This later became "ikil." It was put into a compound to give English "isikel," before the modern form, "icicle." There are (and were) Germanic relatives of the compound word and of the second part of the compound (naturally there are relatives of "ice" in the other Germanic languages, see link below): German once had "isilla, isel," and it has "Kegel" (cone, bowling pin, which is cone shaped), Low German has "Iesjökel" (icicle, Ies=ice + Jökel=icle), Dutch "ijskegel" (icicle), Icelandic has "jökull" (ice formation, glacier), Danish has the antiquated (dialect?) "jisegel" (icicle), Norwegian has "isjukel" (icicle). 

^ For the history of the word "ice," this is the link:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/01/german-question-part-seventy-one.html

^^ Low German is a close relative of English and its "g" is typically pronounced "y," a characteristic carried over to the dialect of Berlin ("Berlinerisch"), a former Low German speaking area, where certain Low German elements have survived for centuries since High German spread to Berlin.