Tuna Stuffed Peppers a la Sarda

I have always had a prejudice against cooked tuna. Anyone who attended low budget camps and programs in the 60s will understand this. In fact, my husband has been begging for years for tuna noodle casserole, and I have said, olvedate, or words to that effect. That means fuggedaboutit in Spanish. It's pronounced ol-ve-da-tay. So, Jean Hewitt induced me to eat cooked tuna in peppers, and it is surprisingly good. I didn't get dinner started until after 7:30, due to having to walk the dog. The dog, like everyone else around this place who is not an adult child, is old. He has a wheelchair. (No joke.) It's a little cart that his hind legs go into, with shafts that run along his belly and a yoke type thing across his back. But, he still tools around the neighborhood, and since spring is here, we went out and enjoyed the azaleas and the dogwood and the tulips.
The recipe starts out with sauteeing 4 cloves of garlic in oil, and then throwing out the sauteed garlic, and having mildly flavored oil. I think it would have been even better if I had just chopped up the garlic and sauteed it. Then you mix up bread crumbs, anchovies, tuna, a cup of canned tomatoes, capers, basil, pine nuts, and currants and stuff it all into the peppers. Bake for an hour while you do something else, like pick up the two weeks worth of newspapers that have accumulated in the dining room.


8 large green peppers
4 cloves garlic
olive oil
1 can anchovy fillets, chopped
1 1/2 cups soft bread crumbs
2 seven ounce cans tuna fish, flaked
1 cup peeled seeded chopped tomatoes
1/2 cup capers, drained
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup pignoli
1/2 cup currants

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

1. Cut a slice of the stem end of each pepper and remove core and seeds. Set peppers in a baking dish.
2. Saute the garlic in one-half cup oil until brown. Remove garlic and discard.
3. Add the anchovies and bread crumbs to the boil and saute briefly.
4. Add the remaining ingredients. Mix well and use to fill peppers. Spoon a little oil over each one. Bake, uncovered, about one hour or until tender.