Stuffed Bell Peppers

I remember my mom making stuff bell peppers when I was a kid. I always loved that it seemed to be the perfect combination especially on rainy winter nights. I have never been able to exactly replicate what I remember my mom doing, although I haven't actually ever inquired. But over the past 10 years I have definitely experimented a little bit. Like most things I make they change a bit every time because I don't keep exact track of my movements if it is not completely necessary. 

Several weeks ago Sprouts two weeks in a row seemed to have yellow and orange bell peppers on sale! Two for $1 which is incredible! Because I can't seem to pass up a sale of vegetables like that I found myself with more peppers than I was going to eat on their own. I had a lovely brain storm to make stuff peppers! ESFSW helped me with this endeavor and gets the credits for the photos! Please don't just we are working in sub-prime conditions and this project is on top of both of our full time jobs. The food we create we are also planning to be our dinner so the main purpose is to make dinner, secondary purpose is to provide blog posts! I hope in the future our photography will get more professional looking. But for now it is merely to be pictorially descriptive!

Here is what I used:

Peppers - red, orange or yellow (green work too but I like the flavor of these better)

Ground meat - I used pork sausage for its flavor

Garlic

Onion

Olive Oil

Stewed Tomatoes (canned)

Tomato sauce (canned)

Rice - I used Trader Joe's Brown Rice medley with Rice, black barley and Dikon Radish seeds

Red Pepper flakes

Worcestershire Sauce

Tabasco Sauce

Cheese - I used Herb Goat Cheese

Most of the Ingredients used! I forgot a few when I took the picture.

Here is what I did:

Chop the onion (1 small one or 1/2 a large one). 

Peel 4 cloves of garlic. I don't particularly mind the smell of garlic on my hands it is so much better than the smell of gloves from laboratory work or chemical smell (and yes I am very diligent in washing my hands in lab and when I cook!). If peeling garlic cloves are the bane of your existence then here is a tip for you. Take a clove of garlic and place it on a cutting board. Take a large knife like the one pictured with the onion in the picture above. Put the flat part of the blade over the garlic clove and with the heel of your hand smash the garlic clove using the broad side of the blade.

Smashing a garlic clove.

Once smashed the paper skin will peel off much easier!

Presto! Garlic peeled in 2 easy steps!

In a medium fry pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Taking the garlic mince garlic directly into the fry pan.

Olive oil heating

Let garlic simmer 1 to 2 minutes, then add onions and cook til the onions are starting to soften.

Garlic simmering - breath in the aroma!

While the garlic and onion are cooking put a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil. Depending on the size of the pot, drop peppers into the boiling water and par boil for 10 minutes. This step softens the peppers so it doesn't take as long to bake the peppers before they soften in the oven. Many of my early attempts ended with me looking sadly into the oven after the peppers had baked for an hour with the peppers still pretty crunchy!

I should have used a bigger pot! I had to boil each individually.

While the peppers are boiling the onions and garlic should be done and it is time to add the sausage.

I don't particularily like handling raw meat so I just drop the whole thing in the pan and then break it apart as it cooks with a spoon.

Both me and ESFSW like a little heat to our food so I added some red pepper flakes (just like the ones you get with pizza) to the meat as it cooked. If you don't like spice, you can leave this out. Although I would encourage you to try just adding a bit. A little heat can help bring out the flavors in foods.

Once the meat is completely browned, remove from heat

And back to the peppers! If you are starting to feel like there are a lot of steps, their are! If you are a good multi-tasker it isn't too bad, or if you have a good assistant the process is pretty easy. The hardest thing in cooking things that have multiple steps is the timing of everything and using the waiting time to work on other steps.

So the peppers - doing this next step immediately after they were removed from boiling water will cause small finger burns! Please let the peppers cool down a little bit before handling. Next they need to be de-seeded. What I do is take a small sharp knife and cut a circle around the green stem. Then pull on the step and seeds should come out easily. Any loose seeds in the bottom of the pepper can be dumped out.

This time around I decided to cut the peppers in half, but they can be stuffed whole as well. I cut the peppers the long way and arranged into an baking dish.

Now in a large bowl, combine the cooked meat, drained diced tomatoes and the cooked rice medley (I cooked this the night before). If you tasted the meat and want more spice feel free to add some more spice at this step.

Now evenly divide the meat and rice mixture and spoon into the bell pepper halves.

Now for the sauce! Pour the can of tomato sauce into a small bowl and stir in a dash of both Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco. This just give a little bit more complexity to tomato sauce which quite frankly is pretty bland in my opinion. The Tabasco beyond adding some heat also cuts the sweetness of both cooked peppers as well as canned tomato sauce due to the high vinegar content.

After mixing, pour the sauce evenly over the peppers.

Drop large chunks of goat cheese on top each pepper. If using cheddar or some harder cheese wait to top the peppers with it until half way through baking. Place the peppers in a pre-heated 400 F oven and bake for 30 minutes. (Add shredded cheese after 15 minutes and bake til cheese is melted and bubbling)

And here is my final product! Aren't they beautiful. If you want a more toasted top, after you bake them turn on the broiler to low and cook for 2-5 minutes. Watch them carefully so you don't burn them!

ESFSW and I between use ate 3 halves of the peppers and the rest were consumed as leftovers through out the week. We had them on their own because we weren't super hungry, but they can be served with a nice green salad if you need more to eat! Although we did enjoy them with a nice bottle of wine white acquired from the local Trader Joes.

As with most of my cooking, feel free to experiment and deviate from the recipe above. My goal is to provide general guidelines for preparing delicious food, but I want to encourage you putting your own flare on your dishes! I would also like to note that these truly are an balanced meal in and of themselves. Balance of protien, vegetables and grains with a little cheese to boot! I haven't tried to make these vegetarian, but if you are one you could probably subsitute beans for the meat with relative ease. Or just use a rice and lentil mixture. If you frown on rice due to its lower nutritional value feel free to use a more nutrious grain like quinoa.

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!

Omelette Night Try 1!

 

There are nights when the only thing that sounds appetizing is breakfast foods! I am not snobby I have no problem eating breakfast any time of day. I do however do have issues eating non-breakfasty foods in the morning. Luckily ESFSW also enjoys breakfast for dinner and omelettes. He actually makes them quite frequently for himself. I haven't tasted any of his yet but he promises to make one for me soon! 

Omelettes are not tricky to make, although it did take me a while to find the patience to let the egg cook before I accidentally just turned my omelette into a scramble! I also learned that it is best to use slightly cooked vegetables and always use cooked tomatoes or else the whole thing gets watery! Ewwww!

The omelette I made this night was asparagus, blushing tomato and goat cheese! I also made hash browns, but I haven't been too successful in that endeavor so I didn't take a picture of those.

And here is what I did:

Ingredients:

2 eggs (per omelette)

1/8 onion - diced and saute in butter

3-4 asparagus stocks (cut into thirds and lightly steamed)

blushing tomatoes

herb goat cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

butter

Beat two eggs in a bowl. Heat frying pan and melt butter. Heat on medium high heat (adjust as needed). Once butter has fully melted, tilt pan to make sure it coats the entire surface. Pour egg into the pan. Add onions on top the egg. Let the eggs cook undisturbed when you start to see the edges firm up add other ingredients to one side of the pan. Let eggs continue to cook. Gently with a spatula fold the egg only side over the other ingredients. Let it cook til the egg sets. You can actually turn off the heat at this point. 

Now the tricky part! Take a plate and with a sure and quick movement turn the frying pan over flipping the omelette onto the plate. Now I usually would eat mine with some mixed salad greens, but hash browns also are tasty!

My Omelette!

Brussels Sprouts, potatoes and fish...oh my!

Saturday evenings since the New Year have been let's cook night for me and my bf. It has been a great way for the two of us to spend time together and save some money. There have been some (in my mind) epic failures and there have been some great meals as well. Mostly they are simple, well balanced hitting the important food groups and always colorful! This week's Saturday night meal was grill fish (yellow tail and swordfish) with goat cheese mashed potatoes and braised Brussels Sprouts. The inspiration was actually the potatoes which were suppose to be my attempt making Colcannon.

Colcannon - Traditional Irish Potato Dish

Unfortunately I didn't do a whole lot of recipe research due to a lack of time and the first recipe that I happened upon (which sounds amazing) said it takes nearly 2 hours! While I can spend that much time making something I really wasn't in the mood. Since then however I have found that they are not all that long to make and I probably could have whipped up a simple version in the same time I made the mashed potatoes. Que sera sera!

Menu: Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes, Butter Braised Brussels Sprouts, Grilled Fish

Rough Recipe: Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes 

Russet Potatoes (or another type of your pleasing - the starch types are the best however!)

Butter (Don't even think of using margarine it is a sin!)

Half and Half (milk can be used as well to reduce the fat, best not to use skim!)

Salt and Peper to taste (using white pepper means no black specks in the cream whiteness of the potatoes)

Goat Cheese (plain or herb)

Note: you will notice I didn't use amounts - I typically cook by eye and taste when it is something that using exact amounts don't matter.

Cut the potatoes in to small cubes (I like leaving the skin on, but you can always peel them. But you get more nutrients eating the skin). Boil in salted water for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Drain water and return to pan (you can also do this ahead of time and then store the potatoes in the refrigerator for when you are ready). On medium heat pour some milk into the pan with the potatoes and add a Tbs of butter. Mash the potatoes, stirring occasionally so they don't burn on the bottom of the pan. Add more milk and butter as necessary. I like personally like my mashed potatoes with a little personality, so I leave it chunky. The changes in consistency from potatoes pieces and skin to smooth and creamy is more homey and inviting in my opinion. If you want them completely smooth you will need to mash them really well and then whip them in some fashion either in a blender or with an immersion blender. All of this seems like a lot of extra work and clean up just to remove a few lumps! Just before serving mix in goat cheese. Add as much as you want! I personally love the pungent tangy taste of goat cheese so I added a lot. All you have left is to savor the cheesy potato goodness!

Then there are the Brussels Sprouts! I love Brussels Sprouts! I can't express this enough. Now I know there are quite a few people out there that may cringe at the idea of them and definitely don't like the taste. But, let me tell you if cooked right they are heavenly! But you do need to get fresh ones and you definitely don't want to over cook them. Just like cabbage when over cooked which can start to taste sulfurous. In Sunshineville it is pretty easy to get a whole lot of vegetables at any time during the year with no mind to what season these vegetables come from. Brussels Sprouts are not one of them. They are a winter vegetable and should only be enjoy in the winter and early spring in my mind! So I do a little dance in the store Jan - March when I can find Brussels sprouts at 99 cents/lb. They have to be though perfect little miniature cabbages. If the outside leaves look really wilted or black I usually pass on them. I know the fresh they are the better they will taste.

I use to only steam Brussels sprouts but I typically found I would over cook the outside just to get the middle cooked. I also decided that just steam was not enough for these wonderful vegetables! So here is what I did:

Rough Recipe: Butter Braised Brussels Sprouts

Brussel sprouts - trimmed and cut in half

garlic - diced or minced (minced is much easier if you don't want your hands smelling of garlic)

butter

water

Melt butter in a saute pan with the mince garlic. Add the Brussels sprouts cut side down in the pan. Cook til they are slightly browned. Turn the sprouts and brown the other side. Once golden brown on each side add 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of water. Let sprouts steam til they are perfectly bright green! Try not to gobble them up before they hit the plate.

The remainder of the meal was cooked by my bf. Fish grilled with just a little salt and pepper. I must say I would like to take time to mention the Pacific Beach Fish Shop.

 If you live in Sunshineville and like fish you should check out the PB Fish Shop. They are a restaurant but you can also buy fish by the lb to cook yourself. I've been there twice to eat and definitely recommend it. They have excellent fish, great local beer selection and a great ambiance. The place may be in PB, but it doesn't have the undergrad vibe that so many other places nearer the water have. Please note the place is small and they have a single register so if you go in the evening the line will take a while, but it is worth it! I know you can call in orders and if you do there is a shorter line to pay for phone orders.