Cheese-Filled Sweet Roasted Peppers

Sweet stuffed peppers so striking that even the camera stammered? Appears to be so.

I took something like 60 images of these stuffed peppers in progress and, for some reasons, the photos came out less than adequate.

I blame it on the utter gorgeousness that exuded from these once crunchy now delicate and still sweet peppers.

Ah, good times in the kitchen.

It took about 1.5 hours to prepare these peppers. I massaged them with olive oil and roasted them in the oven for about 45 minutes. I thought they might take much longer to cook, considering their small size. But consider this a chemistry lesson. Remember the Little Engine that Could, or the question: If you drop a five pound bag of metal and a five pound bag of feathers, which would land first? This kitchen experiment totally reminded me of those two things.

After roasting, I gently cut open the peppers, then stuffed each with cuts of mozzarella or Havarti cheese.

Back into the oven for about 15 minutes. Then, they were ready for eating. Eating. Ha! What a funny word. It took me a while before I actually began eating.

I was mesmerized by these beautiful tiny peppers. I pulled them within inches of my eyes and studied their gleaming textures. The soft, wrinkled skin gently enclosed lovely pillows of melted cheese. The skin of each pepper, slightly charred, had such gorgeous texture.

And the smell! I wish I could digitally transmit the smell of these wondrous cheese pockets! The scent was all together alluring. I cannot pinpoint an actual smell that serves to describe the scent. I can only offer an emotion: The exuberant feeling of fists-pumping-to-the-sky success.

Yep. That description is as close as it gets to the real thing.