Stuffed Peppers (maybe)

This is on the Watery Tart by mistake!  I didn't realize it was on the wrong blog until I was almost done writing it.  I hereby giveThe Country Tart   http://www.prixflex.com/tart/  permission to use this recipe in her book.  I hope it turns out tasting good and that there aren't too many errors in the recipe, should someone wish to fix this dish.

This has been our best year ever when it comes to growing sweet peppers.  I've been leaving the green peppers on the vine and letting them get red.  I love having sweet red peppers free from my garden, instead of paying whatever ridiculous price the grocery store sells them for.  They've been plentiful and big and sweet.  Alas, October is here, and it's getting cool outside.  There isn't enough time to let the peppers hang on the bush until they get red.  So today, we picked all of them, 9 total. 



One of them is too flat on one side to qualify for stuffed pepper status.  It'll be a snack for me this week, or put into a salad.

Stuffed peppers.  I have never made one that tasted good.  They've been edible, but not what you're looking for when you're craving stuffed peppers.  Stouffer's is better and more consistent than my many attempts.  I will never give up, though.  I can't see eating a processed sodium bomb when surely I can make a decent stuffed pepper.

One thing I learned as I browsed recipes today is that I probably should have been cooking the rice for the stuffing first.  I've tried raw rice, crushed up crackers, bread crumbs, bread soaked in milk, corn flakes - you name it, I've tried using it in my stuffed peppers. 

Here is the recipe I'm attempting today.  I did my usual - read 5-6 recipes, then take what I wanted from them.



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Stuffed PeppersServes 8

Ingredients:

8 bell peppers
3 T olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1.5 pound ground beef
3 cups cooked yellow rice (prepared with butter, no salt)
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 t Kosher salt
1/2 t black pepper
2 8-oz cans tomato sauce (I used Hunts no salt added)
1/2 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Cut tops from peppers and remove seeds and ribs.  If they won't stand up, cut off a little of the bottom to try and even them out.  (I just wedged them into the pan)

Brush outside of peppers with olive oil  (I just rubbed a little bit on them)

In a medium frying pan, heat 2 T olive oil over medium heat

Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes

Crumble ground beef into pan and cook, stirring to break up lumps, until it loses its pinkness

Drain the fat

Add the cooked rice, parsley, cheese, salt, and pepper to the ground beef/onion mixture

Lightly beat the egg and pour over, then mix everything together well

Stuff the peppers with the filling, mounding top slightly

Place peppers in baking dish (whatever size will hold them)

Mix tomato sauce and water, and pour into dish, over and around the peppers

Drizzle with 1 T olive oil

Bake for 45 minutes

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Here are some pictures of the process



Cleaned Peppers



Yellow Rice, with Leftovers

I had a bag of yellow rice in the pantry that I was planning to cook with shrimp, peas and ham.  Instead, I will do the shrimp, peas and ham over spaghetti squash later this week.





I use a wok for stuff like this.

Mix everything together



Stuff the peppers

Pour tomato sauce/water over the peppers, drizzle with olive oil, and bake for 45 minutes

The verdict:

They tasted great - but the peppers weren't cooked through. 

We both ate one; I ate the partially-raw pepper, but Greg threw his away and just ate the stuffing.  While we ate them, I put a lid on the pan and put them back in the oven for 20 minutes.  That STILL wasn't quite enough time!

Some recipes said to par-boil the peppers.  I though since mine were only minutes out of the garden, they wouldn't need par-boiling.  The main recipe I copied from said nothing about pre-cooking them at all.  Sigh.  Still and all, these came out tasting great, and we have 4 left over for another night.

Black-Eyed Peas

http://countrytart.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-way-with-black-eyed-peas-for-2011.html

Everybody ready?  Today I'm testing the first of hopefully many recipes from the Country Tart. 

The first thing I did was print out the recipe.  I went through the list of ingredients, pulling from my pantry whatever was on the list that I already had.  Then it was off to the grocery store to pick up the rest.  I wanted to go to the Indian store for the spices, but they aren't open when I am ready to shop today.  If I waited around for the rest of the world to get rolling, I'd never accomplish anything, so I went to the regular old grocery store.  I thought this would be a good way to see if the ingredients for this recipe could be purchased at my regular store, and it turns out they could.  Altogether I spent $19.98.  I could have kept it lower than that by buying smaller jars of spices, but I have  a feeling I'll be using a lot of these ingredients in recipes to come so I didn't scrimp.  Besides, I bought a lottery scratch ticket and won $20, so technically it was all free anyway.  Plus, they paid me $0.02.  So not only is this recipe filled with foods that love me back (TM COUNTRY TART), it is paying me to cook it. 

The link to Lynn's blog posting of this recipe is given above, but to keep everything in one place, here is the recipe:
********************************************************************
A New Way with Black-eyed Peas for 2011

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb bag dried Black-eyed peas
1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo, internal seeds removed, (to taste) plus
1-2 tablespoons of adobo sauce from peppers
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
1 teaspoon cumin
6 cloves garlic, skins still intact
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped


EQUIPMENT:

Shallow pan
Crock Pot


1 - Place beans in slow cooker and cover in 2 quarts of water.

2- Add the adobo, sauce, paprika, cocoa, salt, turmeric, coriander and cumin to the slow cooker. 

3 - Meantime, on stovetop, heat pan on high heat until it is very hot and throw unpealed garlic into pan.  Turn garlic several times over the next 3-5 minutes until all sides are bubbled and black. Set aside to cool. This method adds great smoky and warm flavor to garlic without scorching or burning the actual flesh.

4 - Reduce heat in pan to medium-low and add olive oil and chopped onions.  Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes more or until onion pieces are soft and brown. 

5 - Add caramelized onions to slow cooker. 

6 - When garlic has cooled so that you can it up in your bare hand, squeeze garlic clove out of bubbly and brown skins and directly into slow cooker.

7 - Cook for approximately 6 hours on high or 8-10 on low or until beans are tender.  You may need to adjust cooking time per your individual cooker's specifications.

8 - Just before serving, add 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley and stir throughout so that it cooks into the recipe but stays bright and vibrant. 

Look at these nutritional stats!!!



Note that this label is based upon generic recommendations for a typical person consuming a 2,000 calorie diet. Your personal numbers for this recipe will vary according to your own unique individual needs.
**********************************************************************

Let's take this step by step.  Here are the ingredients all gathered together.



So THAT's what chipotle peppers in adobo sauce look like.  Smells awesome!

1 - Place beans in slow cooker and cover in 2 quarts of water.

Done.  However, should I rinse and pick through the beans first?  I compromised by picking out the nasty-looking beans.

2- Add the adobo, sauce, paprika, cocoa, salt, turmeric, coriander and cumin to the slow cooker. 

Hm.  No mention of the chipotle peppers.  I know I said I wasn't going to do anything that wasn't in the recipe, but seriously, I'm sure Lynn means "Add the chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, paprika, cocoa, salt, turmeric, coriander  and cumin" so that's what I'm going to do.   They are not mentioned in any of the other steps, and this seems like a good time to add them.  Also, after I remove the seeds, should I chop the peppers or throw them in whole?  I compromised by slicing them.

3 - Meantime, on stovetop, heat pan on high heat until it is very hot and throw unpealed garlic into pan.  Turn garlic several times over the next 3-5 minutes until all sides are bubbled and black. Set aside to cool. This method adds great smoky and warm flavor to garlic without scorching or burning the actual flesh.

TYPO ALERT!!  "Unpealed" should be "unpeeled," technically.  But I know what she means.  Also, I love this method, which I've never heard of before.  What a great shortcut for roasted garlic.

I hope these are cooked enough. 

4 - Reduce heat in pan to medium-low and add olive oil and chopped onions.  Cook, stirring often, for about 5 minutes more or until onion pieces are soft and brown. 
Drat.  No typos, no confusing directions, no questions, nothing to criticize.  I was on a roll, too.

5 - Add caramelized onions to slow cooker. 
OK, I did.  While the onions were cooking, I thought about how we added all the spices directly into the crockpot with the beans and water.  I think if I were doing this recipe out of a random cookbook, no matter what the directions said I would have added the spices into the carmelized onions and cooked them all together for a minute and then put them in with the beans and water.  Mainly because I love the way that makes my kitchen smell!  Maybe next time.

6 - When garlic has cooled so that you can it up in your bare hand, squeeze garlic clove out of bubbly and brown skins and directly into slow cooker.
NOTE: I'm pretty sure she means "so that you can PICK it up in your bare hand" and that's what I did.

This is my new favorite cooking technique!  They squeezed out of the skins very easily.  As a side note, I've never cooked beans in the crockpot before.  I always use my dutch oven on top of the stove.  I tend to stir a lot, which might not work as well with a crockpot.  However, I can see how using a crockpot really makes life easy and will probably use this method from here on out.  This recipe has already given me two new skills (roasting garlic in a pan, cooking beans in a crockpot) and a slight profit margin, and I haven't even eaten it yet!

7 - Cook for approximately 6 hours on high or 8-10 on low or until beans are tender.  You may need to adjust cooking time per your individual cooker's specifications.
When I started using a crockpot back in the 70's the instructions always said to cook on high for an hour, then turn down to low for the rest of the cooking time.  This is what I'm doing, even though it is in direct defiance of the instructions.  I need to change the thing at the top of this blog that says if it doesn't say to put the lid on, I'm not doing it.  I should revise that to "I will use whatever technique I feel like using, based on past experience."  I can't help it.  It's just the way I cook.

8 - Just before serving, add 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley and stir throughout so that it cooks into the recipe but stays bright and vibrant.
Alright.

THE FINAL RESULT

This recipe is going into my permanent file.  DELICIOUS - the beans are smoky, with a deep flavor that tastes so good you want to drink a cup of the juice.   My sister, who agreed to try black-eyed peas fixed this way in spite of the fact that she has never liked them, ate a whole serving and said they were delicious!  We had them for dinner, with beef brisket and cornbread.  Here's a picture of my finished product.

The Country Tart is a Very Brave Woman

My dear friend  The Country Tart has been asked to write a book, by the owners of NutriMirror.  This will be an awesome book filled with her own personal experience and information about healthy eating, and recipes.

My experience with recipes is that many times an important instruction has been left out, or a measurement is wrong, or the cooking time is crazily inaccurate.  For example, have you ever tried making a recipe off of the Food Network's website?  If so, I rest my case.  If not, before you attempt one of their recipes, be sure to read all of the comments, and watch the video if there is one, to find out the real instructions, or you will never end up with the same dish the chef did.

Because of my experience with inaccurate recipes (please see my other blog Serenity Swamp for some true-to-life examples of recipes I have had a problem with), I offered to test recipes for The Country Tart before she puts them in her book.  Yes, my obvious ulterior motive was to get to her recipes before anyone else.  However, my less-obvious motive was to help her make sure that all her recipes are accurate.  If I am going to ride on her coattails to fame and fortune, I do not want it to be because she is ridiculed for all the inaccuracies in her recipes.    

Because The Country Tart is a wise woman, she agreed to let me test them.  Then she further agreed to let me blog about testing them.  Next, I will ask her to come to my house and cook the recipes, but she doesn't know that yet.  I will need time to butter her up a lot before I bring up that idea with her.