Michael Symon's Spicy Stuffed Peppers and Tour of Lexington Farmer's Market

My first Michael Symon recipe is inspired from a recent trip to the Lexington Farmer's Market.

Homegrown local banana peppers. Kentucky Proud Vito's Sausage, Robust (spicy) version. A little of Mom's homemade Tomato sauce, made with tomatoes grown in the backyard and you're all set!! A perfectly tasty and local appetizer or lunch!

Spicy Stuffed Peppers
Adapted from Michael Symon's Live to Cook
Serves 4-8
8 Hungarian hot peppers
1-1/2 pounds Pork Sausage or Italian Sausage
2 cups Yia Yia's Sunday sauce or jarred tomato sauce
8 fresh basil leaves (I left these out as they were already in mom's tomato sauce)

Preheat the oven to 375F. Light coals in a charcoal grill for a medium-hot fire. Butter an 8x11 inch baking dish.

Cut the tops off of the peppers and spoon out any seeds. Divide the sausage into 8 equal portions and spoon it into the peppers to fill them. (I decided to cut my peppers in half horizontally for presentation).

Pour the sauce into the prepared baking dish.

Grill the peppers to char them on the outside, about 2 minutes per side. Remove them from the grill and lay the peppers on top of the sauce. Bake for 10 minutes or until the sausage reaches an internal temperature of 150F. Divide among plates, spoon some tomato sauce on top, and garnish each with a basil leaf.

Notes/Results: My husband and I had a version of these while on our trip up to Ohio and we wanted to recreate them at home. We had them as a light lunch after our trip to the Farmer's Market and we really loved them. I chose to grill the peppers inside on my grill pan and it worked well. I also chose to halve the peppers horizontally for presentation. This has been one of our favorite recipes in the past couple of weeks and we will be having them often, especially with the peppers and sausage from the Farmer's Market!

Here is a quick tour of the Lexington Farmer's Market(my favorite place to be on a Saturday morning)!

View from the parking garage.

New Pavillion that was built this past year, complete with ceiling fans. The shade from the pavillion and breeze from the fans is so wonderful on a hot morning.

This year at the Farmer's Market there are a lot of new food vendors and this vendor, Hard Wood Pizza Company, selling wood-fired pizzas is my absolute favorite! My Mom and I go absolutely ga-ga over their pizzas. They feature fresh ingredients sourced directly from the Farmer's Market and the menu changes weekly. We loved their Greek pizza with feta cheese, but we love their Vito's sausage pizza just a little bit more;-)

One of the best pizzas I've ever had. Crispy thin crust, perfectly flavored pizza sauce, lots of cheesy goodness and delicious homemade sausage. We can't get enough of it!

My mom likes this booth, the Cookin' Up Kentucky booth. They have some delicious breakfast and lunch dishes every week. Cookin' Up Kentucky's booth specializes in not only local food but also southern food. You'll find lots of fried green tomatoes at this booth! You can always count on that!

On this particular day, they were serving up burgers with fried green tomatoes and aged cheddar. Sounds like a great idea to me!!

Another new vendor is Le Petit Creperie. They make the crepes to order and the line becomes quite long, but it's worth it. They have both sweet and savory options.

My favorite filling is the Dad's Favorite Swiss Cheese Spread (much like pimento cheese) with tomato and spinach. Absolute cheesy heaven!

I buy a lot of my beef from Triple J, located right in my hometown city, Georgetown, KY. I like that I can talk to the owners and order specialty cuts like bone-in ribeye and tri tip. I like it even better to know where my beef is coming from.

See all those lovely boxes that say Georgia Peaches??? Gotta love those fresh, ripe and juicy peaches that they truck in from Georgia.

The intoxicating smell of peaches strikes you when you're walking through the market. I can never resist them!

San Marzano tomatoes in Kentucky? Can it be so?

I'm submitting this post to Two for Tuesday Blog Hop Carnival, hosted by one of my pals, girlichef.