Recipe Box: Stuffed Provençal Vegetables

After cleaning up from our day of harvesting grapes, my friends and I met our hosts, Paul and Miriam, and our new German friends, Nils and Juliana, in the parking lot of the gîte. We got in our car and they got in Nils and Juliana’s car and off we drove to Jean-Louis’ place, which was just a short way down the road.

Jean-Louis introduced his wife (who worked in a bank and was dressed rather smartly), his mother-in-law (whom we had met earlier that day and whom we knew had been busy in the kitchen preparing our dinner), and his youngest daughter (whom I guessed to be about eight years old). After aperitifs were poured, we made ourselves comfortable in the large and spacious but homey living room.

The conversation that evening was mostly in French, with Jean-Louis’ wife and Paul as our main storytellers. Despite my limited French skills, I was able to follow along thanks to the animated way they both talked as well as Paul’s effort to speak slowly and carefully. It wasn’t long before we were invited to take our seats at the expansive wooden farm table in the next room.

I was seated next to the grandmother. As I was feeling the effects of the aperitif and also highly conscious of the fact that I was the only registered driver on our rental car (which I wasn’t 100% sure was properly insured, thanks to a communications snafu at the rental counter when we had picked up the car a week earlier), I came up with what I thought would be an ingenious way of managing my liquor intake for the rest of the evening: I would sip my wine very slowly.

But the grandmother was much too smart for me. When we were into our second course and she saw that I was still nursing my first glass of wine, she asked (in French) if I didn’t like the wine. I assured her (in French) that I thought the wine was excellent. I also realized that I needed to drink up to avoid offending my hosts. Which meant that, for the remainder of the evening, the minute my glass neared the halfway mark, the grandmother topped it up.

Dinner consisted of a simple green salad with olive oil to start, served with three types of bread. We were encouraged to wipe off our plates after every course with the bread, something I’ve noticed my French friends do automatically. The main course was zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes, all stuffed with a mixture of ground beef and herbs. A cheese course followed, more bread, coffee, then dessert, which consisted of fruit flans, one of which was quince, baked on cookie sheets. Brandy to finish off the evening. We ate until we could eat no more. Even Nils looked to be in pain when they tried to get him to take a third helping of the fruit flan.

The party finally broke up around midnight. As I rummaged around in my bag for the car keys, I told my friends I was slightly drunk, but thought I was OK to drive the short distance back to the gîte. However, no sooner had I poked the nose of the car into the road when one of my friends pointed out that another vehicle was approaching. I quickly reversed the car. “OK, maybe not so OK,” I muttered.

When I finally decided it was safe to pull into the road, I pointed the car in the direction we had to go. I drove very slowly and finally the gîte pulled into view. Paul and Miriam were waiting for us in the parking lot because they were worried we had gotten lost.

“That wasn’t the problem,” I said and I told them about my evening sitting beside the grandmother. And the next morning when we all said our good-byes, Nils apologized for feeling a bit hung over. He blamed the grandmother. “Oh, me too!” I said. “I had the exact same problem!”

I have tried several different recipes in an effort to replicate the stuffed vegetables we ate that night. With some tweaking, the following is the best I can come up with. It still doesn’t taste as good as I remember, but it’s a fair copy.

Bon appétit!

Stuffed Provençal Vegetables

1/4 cup bread crumbs or panko
1/4 cup milk
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
4 shallots, minced
2 cups mushrooms, diced
1 tablespoon Herbes de Provence
salt and pepper
2 red peppers
2 orange peppers
2 green peppers
1 eggplant
4 medium tomatoes

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Pour the milk over the bread crumbs or panko and set aside.
3. Cut the tops off the peppers and tomatoes and remove the seeds. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and scoop out the flesh. Alternatively, cut the eggplant horizontally into thirds and scoop out the flesh, making sure you don’t scoop all the way through so that you leave a base for each piece of eggplant. Arrange the vegetables in a baking pan.
4. Combine the pork, beef, shallots, mushrooms, Herbes de Provence, salt, pepper, and moistened bread crumbs or panko. Mix to combine.
5. Fill each vegetable with a generous amount of the meat mixture. (The meat will shrink as it cooks.)
6. Bake for about 1 hour or until meat is cooked through and vegetables are soft.

Note: The tricky part to this recipe is that the different vegetables vary in how quickly they will cook. The tomatoes need the least amount of time, while the eggplant needs the most. Other vegetables that could be stuffed include zucchini or large mushrooms.