The Merc with a Mouth’s Obnoxiously Stuffed Red Peppers

Look at those eyes. Watching you. Judging you. Thinking snarky things in the Yellow Thought Bubble about you. There’s only one way to make it all stop. Cannibalism.

Don’t worry. Eating his face won’t give you Deadpool’s powers, though that hasn’t stopped him from selling old scabs on the internet as a Guaranteed Organic Alternative to Antibiotics.

Deadpool’s Glassy Eyed Stuffed Bell Peppers

4 medium red bell peppers
1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound chorizo sausage
1 large yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 pint mushrooms, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp Italian Seasoning
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 cups tomato sauce
1 egg
2 slices each mozzarella and ‘Merican cheese (optional)
½ cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (optional for people who aren’t gluten-free)

FILLING

Preheat your oven to 400F.

To get started, mix your ground beef and chorizo sausage. Toss the mass of meat into skillet over medium-high heat and brown it up. Drain away any excess delicious grease. Now dump the ground beef in a large, heat-resistant bowl. (Melted plastic is not an ingredient in this recipe.)

The skillet should still have a coating of delicious grease. That’s a good thing, because now you’re going to throw in the onions. Let those sweat down until they start to brown, then add in the mushrooms, minced garlic, and Italian Seasoning.

Continually menace the veggies with your spatula for the next 3-4 minutes. You’ll know you’re done when the garlic starts to brown.

Dump the browned meat and skillet of vegetables into a large bowl. Sprinkle the salt on top. Now crack in a large egg. This is the glue that will help hold your stuffed pepper together. If you’re on a low carb, gluten-free, or paleo diet, start mixing. If you’re one of the few, the proud, the people who still eat bread products, guiltily sprinkle in half a cup of Italian seasoned breadcrumbs.

Either way, knead everything together until it’s a big sticky mess.

STUFFING

Try to find the roundest bell peppers in the store. Don’t worry about the bottoms. You’ll be fine if the top 3 inches or so are good and round, no matter what crazy shapes you see on bottom.

Carefully cut off the caps. Use a short, intimidating knife to cut out the interior veins. If anyone laughs, remind them it’s not the size of the blade, it’s the quality of the stroke.

Once you’ve stolen the pepper’s innards, it’s time to turn their bodies into carriers for your tasty agenda. Gently cram each one full of meaty stuffing until it reaches the top.

Arrange the stuffed peppers face up in a square baking pan. You want them to snuggle up against one another as they face the terror of your 400F hot box.

Dab the tops with a couple tablespoons of tomato sauce. (You gluten free and paleo people will want to use homemade. Lazy grain eaters can just buy a can from the store.) Now plunge them into the firey depths of your oven for the next 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes, take out the pan. Damn. It doesn’t look anything like Deadpool.

Patience. Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before the transformation begins. Otherwise, like the emotional victim of a supervillain attack, they’ll completely fall apart on you.

PRESENTATION

Turn a cooled stuffed pepper on its side. Carefully cut two thick slices across the width of the pepper, about 1 ½ – 2 inches thick. You’re turning your neatly contained stuffed pepper into a series of pepper rings.

To create Deadpool’s face, pour ¼ cup of tomato sauce into the middle of a plate and gently spread it around into a circle. I used my fingers.

Slide a spatula under one of the rings to keep the contents from crumbling. Carefully slide it into the middle of the face. Now go do it again for the second eye.

You’re getting close. You can see the basic outline of Deadpool’s face, but you need a few more details. Use a teaspoon to carefully spoon some tomato sauce around the perimeter of each round red pepper eye. Now, use a small hole punch (or that small, sharp knife you were wielding earlier) to cut two circular pupils out of a slice of Mozzarella cheese.

If you want Deadpool to have a message, like “Eat Me,” cut a thought bubble out of ‘Merican cheese. (Or cheddar, for you civilized folk). Write your message in black icing and carefully position it on the plate.

Congrats! You’ve now turned ordinary peasant food into a stylized anti-hero of epic hunger-fighting proportions. You also have a bunch of raggedy bottom ends of stuffed bell pepper. Either save them for leftovers or feed them to your least favorite guest.