sausage-stuffed banana peppers

my hands are burning. en fuego. i'm feeling pretty foolish, because tonight, when i made stuffed banana peppers, i didn't think to put on gloves to pull out the seeds and ribs. banana peppers aren't hot like chilis or jalapenos, but the heat is in the seeds, which i was essentially up to my elbows in.

i had to nurse dylan tonight wearing blue cotton winter gloves.

the upside is that i got out of diaper changes. well, the real upside is that the peppers were awesome, and i'm kinda proud of myself because i basically made it up as i went along. i faked the sausage by cooking up a pound of venison with onion, lots of fennel seed, garlic, red pepper flakes, thyme, rosemary, sage, italian seasoning, and a little worchestershire. i made tomato sauce with all the fresh tomatoes we had. i stuffed eight or nine peppers with the much-leaner "sausage" mixed with a little sauce, some bread crumbs, and an egg and topped everything with sauce. i baked it at 350 for a half hour and put some mozzarella cheese on top for the last few minutes, cranking it up to broil to brown. it was so good! i haven't made homemade sauce in forever, and we enjoyed it.

i just need to figure out how i'm going to get my contact lenses out of my eyes!

(this could easily be made with green peppers, beef, and a jar of tomato sauce. you could stretch the meat with a little cooked rice to fill the bigger peppers.)