Sausage Stuffed Peppers

January 19, 2012 3 Comments

During my kid years, stuffed peppers were in the regular dinner rotation at my dad’s house. I hated them. My step mom would fill crisp green peppers with a beef mixture in the morning, pop them into the slow cooker with some tomato sauce, and when we got home in the evening we’d find the crunchy green peppers had been transformed into a slimy mushy mess. Back then, I had deep-rooted hatred for lots of cooked veggies—carrots, celery, and tomatoes to name a few—but cooked green peppers took the medal for most loathed cooked vegetable. To my young taste buds, cooked green peppers had this toxic unnatural taste to them—like they’d been marinating in a puddle of Windex for a few hours. It just wasn’t right. Luckily, peppers were pricy so my step mom was more than happy to make me a meatball sans pepper for dinner while the rest of the family subjected themselves to green pepper poisoning. I love a good meatball.

To this day, I’m still not a huge fan of stuffed green peppers. As I aged and grew wiser, I discovered that other types of peppers could be stuffed just as easily and infinitely more deliciously than green peppers ever could.

Case in point:

Some of my favorite peppers to stuff are banana peppers, cubanelles, and Anaheims. I usually buy whichever variety is the biggest (i.e., most stuffable) at the grocery store that day.

Recipes, Slow Cookin

Slow Cooker Sunday: Sausage & Peppers & Apple Crisp!

November 13, 2011 9 Comments

Geeze. Can’t believe it is Sunday. Strike that. I can’t believe Sunday is practically over.

Waaaaaaaa!!!!!

I feel like life is moving along at crazy fast speeds and I’m just flailing my arms about trying to stay afloat. The good news is I’m taking over a week off of work for Turkey Day. So hopefully that helps to revive me!

This lovely Sunday I woke up and got straight to work destroying my kitchen.

When will I learn to clean as I go?

Never.

This week I pulled BOTH of the slow cookers out of the pantry for some slow cooked sausage and peppers and slow cooked apple crisp deliciousness!

We make sausage and peppers pretty regularly and don’t really get crazy with them. We simply throw some grilled sausages in the crockpot with a jar of tomato sauce, green peppers, onions, and some seasonings. You know, garlic garlic garlic and maybe some oregano.

Then we just let everything simmer together until we’re ready to feast. Soup was BOGO at Harris Teeter this week (HOLLA!), so I nabbed some Chipotle Chicken soup I’ve been wanting to try.

Altogether:

Since I had to pop into work for a few hours today, Jarrod was in charge of throwing everything together. Holy cow these sausage sandwiches were DELICIOUS. Absolutely delicious. I asked Jarrod what seasonings he used for the sauce… his response? “Ummm… nothing?”

Men.

Thank you Ragu, thank you. Smile

The soup was great as well—way to hook a sister up, Harris Teeter.

The Slow Cooker Apple Crisp was a wee bit more involved, but totally worth it. I used this Allrecipes.com recipe as my guide, with a few tweaks. I used three granny smith apples and three red apples.. I always get confused on the red apples. What are these? Galas?

First up, mix the following together in a large ziploc baggie or large bowl with lid:

1/3 cup white sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
6 apples peeled and sliced (I used 3 granny smith, 3 gala)
2 tbsp lemon juice

And give it all a good shimmy shake.

Spray the crock with cooking spray, then toss in the apple mixture.

THEN, in a medium bowl, combine the following:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces

Use a fork or your hands to combine everything until the butter is dispersed throughout. I recommend using your hands, of course. Then sprinkle over top of apples.

Ta-da!

Cook on low for four hours, remove lid half way then cook 1 hour more. And you’ll get….

A big fat gloppy mess.

This is NOT ok.

Luckily, my crockpot is oven safe (up to 400 degrees). So, I popped the crock into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Hooray for crispy topping!

The apples of the bottom of the crock disintegrated down into a delicious chunky applesauce. A spoonful of the steaming sauce, some chunks of apple and crispy topping from the top of the crock, and a dollop of slow-churned vanilla ice cream….

O…. M…G….

DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The swaps I made to the original recipe nearly cut the calories in half. Next time I’m going to reduce the sugar more to further healthify the dessert. I’m willing to do several trial runs if necessary 😉

Slow Cooker Apple Crisp

1/3 cup white sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
6 apples peeled and sliced (I used 3 granny smith, 3 gala)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
Vanilla ice cream

Step one: mix the first five ingredients (through lemon juice) together in a large ziploc baggie or large bowl with lid. Shake the bag/bowl to coat the apples. Spray the crock with cooking spray, then toss in the apple mixture.

Step two: in a medium bowl, combine the next seven ingredients (flour through butter). Use a fork or your hands to crumble the butter into the flour mixture. Then sprinkle over top of apples.

Step three: Cook on low for four hours, remove lid half way then cook 1 hour more.

Step four: Verify your crock is oven-safe, then place uncovered crock into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes to crisp the topping. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

My Favs, Ramblings, Recipes

Recipe: Jambalaya {bad things happen when I don’t eat}

July 19, 2011 11 Comments

Somehow in the past few months I seemed to have forgotten my passion for cooking. Let’s take a moment to ponder how the heck this is even possible. Somewhere between leaving a job of over four years, attempting to sell a house, subsequently becoming a landlord, selling off and donating an insane amount of my possessions, a crazy condo hunt, leaving my family and home state of 26 years, a HORRIBLE moving experience, starting a new job, and immersing myself in the culinary delights of a new city I forgot how much fun and just how darn rewarding a home cooked meal can be.

Blasphemy!

Through these past few whirlwind months I’ve been a little *ahem* emotional. Ok, not just emotional. Let’s also throw in irrational, brash, and downright scary at times. This Saturday I actually cried over burnt pizza. I CRIED, PEOPLE. And then I sat on the living room floor with my knees clenched up to my chest and just stared off into nothingness as my body seethed in furry searching for some sort of carbohydrate to peak my bottomed out blood sugar.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: bad things happen when I don’t eat.

While I was in the midst of nuclear shutdown, the BF came over, sat down beside me, and put his arm around his little sugar feigning zombie. And we sat. And then he did what any good man would do: he didn’t talk, didn’t ask questions, he just got up from the floor sauntered over to the kitchen and made me a snack.

I know, right?

Why can’t I see things so simply? Is it really just a man thing? Are women really just crazy complex, overanalyzing, (often) emotional basket cases? Whatever the case may be (lord knows I don’t have the answers) the BF does a pretty darn good job of reeling me back from Mary’s Land of Anxious Gloom by trying to insert some of the simple things into my life. Sunday morning he convinced me to simply sit on the porch and drink mimosas, and Sunday night we simply made jambalaya for dinner.

This was simply stick to your ribs delicious, guys. I’m serious. It gave the jambalaya we had in New Orleans a run for the money!

Jambalaya

Recipe adapted from Cooking Light’s Jambalaya.

2 links hot chicken or turkey sausage (cooked and sliced)
1 cup white onion (chopped)
1/2 cup celery (chopped)
1/2 cup green pepper (chopped)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1.5 cups uncooked long grain brown rice
3 cups fat-free low-sodium chicken broth
1 tbsp paprika (smoked, if you have it)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground thyme
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepepr
16oz cooked chicken breast (cubed)
14.5oz can diced tomatoes with green peppers and onions (undrained)
4oz shrimp (uncooked)
1/2 cup green onions (thinly sliced)

Note: I recommend Uncle Ben’s Fast & Natural Whole Grain Brown Rice and Harris Teeter hot chicken sausage or Jennie-O Turkey Sausage.

Step 1: Coat a large pot with cooking spray then heat over medium-high heat. Add sausage, onion, green pepper, celery, and garlic. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 12 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally.

Step 2: Stir in uncooked rice and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add broth and all the spices and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.

Step 3: Add chicken and tomatoes, half of the green onions, and shrimp. Stir, then cover and cook 8 minutes or until shrimp are done.

Step 4: Remove from heat, sprinkle with remaining green onions, and eat your face off.

Stats on 1 serving: 344 calories, 45g carbs, 6g fat, 33g protein, 4g fiber

Looking for a Jambalaya-for-one recipe? Check out this post.

Looking for a crazy, borderline incoherent, slightly volatile woman? Catch me on a day when I miss my midmorning snack.

Recipes

Quinoa!

January 25, 2011 5 Comments

I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about quinoa lately (pronounced keen-wah), but not surprisingly MANY people still have never heard of this food. Quinoa has been dubbed a super grain — though I think it’s actually a seed not a grain — because it is high in complete protein (meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids). In addition to the protein, it’s got a whole list of other benefits–it is rich in magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, and selenium (which help to control weight and reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes) AND quinoa is rich in lignans (found to reduce the risk of heart disease as well as certain types of cancer). (source)

Pretty impressive resume, eh?

Way back in August, I attended the Healthy Living Summit in Chicago and while there I ventured off to Trader Joe’s with Haya. At the time, I was PUMPED to buy my very first box of Quinoa. Fast forward 5 months, and the box of quinoa was still sitting unopened in my cabinet just waiting to be used.

So sad!

I’d only had quinoa once before (at the HLS) so I wasn’t entirely sure how to incorporate the seed into a meal. After months of staring at the box, I finally decided to go with TJ’s recipe printed right on the backside. Why the heck not?

One important thing about quinoa is that you have to soak and rinse it before you use it:

While the Quinoa soaked, I got to chopping some bell peppers. The recipe called for one yellow and one red pepper:

And one medium onion… I threw in some green pepper for good measure.

Ready, set, go!

Once I was done chopping, I cooked up 1 cup of quinoa according to the package instructions (though I subbed fat free low sodium chicken broth for the water). Then I threw the veggies into a saute pan along with 4 minced cloves of garlic and some S&P and let them hang out for a bit.

Meanwhile, I cubed up 8 ounces of grilled chicken:

Gettin their sizzle on:

Once the quinoa cooks through it gets pretty fluffy. It kind of reminds me of fluffier couscous:

Once the quinoa was cooked, I combined it with the veggies and chicken, about 10 leaves of sliced up fresh basil, and 1/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese:

I topped my plate off with some black pepper and red pepper flakes for good measure:

This specific recipe was a little on the bland side, but despite that I LOVE quinoa. Since we were lacking in the flavor department, I topped myself off with some Frank’s Red Hot to add a little kick.

Now that I’ve broken the quinoa seal, I’m feeling optimistic about trying out some different quinoa recipes. Any of you guys have suggestions?

Stats on 1/4 of the TJ’s Quinoa recipe: 288 calories, 38g carbs, 6g fat, 21g protein, 5g fiber

Recipes

Jambalaya. Jealous?

November 1, 2010 9 Comments

Every time I think of New Orleans, I hear the Zatarain’s rice commercial in my head. You know… Zatarain’s! (Said with much sass and flavor while jazz music wails in the background). Even before my trip to the Big Easy, I had this funny mental quirk.

This thought popped into my head tonight when I began to think about what to make for dinner. I was presented with the following challenge: what do you make when you’ve got leftover meats out the wazoo?

JAMBALAYA of course! It seems like ages since I last made Jambalaya! Well at least four months anyway. I had some chicken leftover from last week’s lunch and the turkey sausage was leftover from my Zuppa Tuscana…

Lucky for me, I keep frozen shrimp in the freezer at all times in case of emergency. So whipping together a 3-meat entre was easy peasy tonight!

3 meats, one dish:

The meats were ready to roll, so I heated the oven up to 400 degrees and got to choppin 2 roma tomatoes, 1/2 a white onion, and 1 green pepper:

I tossed the veggies into a bowl with:

1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
2 tsp minced garlic

I gave everything a good toss, then added:

1 cup brown rice
1 cup low sodium chicken broth

I intended on using 1.5 cups of brown rice, but I ran out! Ooops! That’s what happens when I grocery shop without taking inventory first! Dangit!

I divided the mix up evenly among three foil packets that I had sprayed down with some nonstick cooking spray:

One for my dinner, one for my lunch, and one for the BF’s lunch because I’m clearly dabomb.com.

I popped the packets into the oven for 30 minutes, and VOOOOILLLAAA!

Oh so spicy, and ohhhhh so delicious!

Yes, the jambalaya we had in New Orleans (and again) was a teensy bit tastier than my healthified version, but I’d like to see NOLA try and stack up to these stats:

Stats on 1 serving: 314 calories, 33g carbs, 9g fat, 27g protein, 3g fiber

Jambalaya Ingredients List (serves 3):

6 large shrimp, tails removed
2 links Jennie-O Hot Turkey Sausage
3 ounces grilled chicken
1 green bell pepper
2 plum tomatoes
1/2 a white onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
1 cup reduced sodium low fat chicken broth

1 2 Next »