Vegetable Stuffed Peppers

I am full on in the mood for fall. For awhile there it was alarming to see temperatures in the 70's and 80's in October but Mother Nature has gotten over her little temper tantrum and it is now getting into the cool crisp feeling of fall. In addition to the leaves changing colors, one of my favorite things about fall is the coolness. Now before everyone goes "booo I love the beach", hear me out. There's something safe and innocent about snuggling under the covers in those twilight hours before the day begins. It's just a few more minutes of staying in the nice warmth of your house when it's not quite time to think about responsibility and the day ahead of you. That's a great feeling, to just stay safe and snuggled a little longer. And no one likes to be under the covers when it's 90 degrees outside.

Well, the leaves haven't quite changed over yet (I hope I don't miss it in my busyness) so I have to get my fall color fix somewhere else. What a perfect reason to buy peppers! I'm not a huge spicy person but bell peppers are pretty plain. The extent to which I've prepared bell peppers is to cut them up (poorly) and dip them in hummus. This is my first venture into stuffing anything as well! But they looked so good in the cookbook and seemed like a good fall transition meal.

The only thing missing is some orange accent

Before carefully reading the recipe, I assumed these peppers would essentially be stuffed with chili (also an excellent fall food) but it turns out they're stuffed with more veggies! Is that veggie cannibalism? Vegetables stuffed with other vegetables? I won't think too long on that one since the outcome is delicious. Similar to making chili, you saute the non-pepper ingredients together, adding a little at a time. I learned last year when making pumpkin chili that my frying pan can hold quite a lot but fortunately there was no over-spilling this time. While the vegetables are cooking, the peppers are in the oven cooking a bit themselves. This is a very efficient meal, you really only have to set timers and pay attention for a total of 15 minutes and I got dinner/lunch for half the week!

Now, in true Lemon fashion, I altered this recipe a bit. I didn't have spicy peppers to add to the vegetables so I just added some chili powder. I also didn't use tomato paste but just diced tomatoes and in an effort to compensate for the lack of spicy peppers, got spicy diced tomatoes (note: that is now two different ingredients to compensate for the one lacking in spice. Math is my strong suit).

I'm not sure why, but I love kidney beans. Not necessarily by themselves but they are right up there with pumpkin and squash as fall staples. You can't (or shouldn't) make chili without them and they're a great addition to this stuffed business.

Look at all that deliciousness!

To top it all off, I used pepper jack cheese because it's delicious. And it's what I had. And it seemed like a good idea to add spice (yes, in addition to the chili powder and spicy tomatoes). After stuffing the peppers and sprinkling some cheese on top, the lot of it is put back in the oven so the cheese will melt and the vegetables will finish cooking.

These peppers, not surprisingly, turned out pretty spicy but they were delicious! One half at a time was probably the correct portion size with a side of butternut squash soup but I ate a whole one too. Prior to making these, I always envisioned stuffed peppers as being upright with the stem portion cut off and then stuffed. Cut in half makes much more sense. Unfortunately, the seasoning was so amazing that my poor butternut squash soup tasted absolutely bland. And maybe it is bland, I did get it from a Downton Abbey cookbook and as far as I know, British food can be bland (disclaimer: I have never had British food so this could be completely unfounded).

I deem this recipe a success and new go-to recipe for the fall and winter. It's easy to make and also healthy, all veggies and just a little cheese. Plus, boyfriend approves! He was quite helpful when it came to chopping the onion because as you may have experienced, they burn my eyes like no other. There, you got a shout out, woohoo!!!

The final product, Instagram filter included

Recipe

• 4 bell peppers
• 2 carrots
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 small onion
• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 can of diced tomatoes 
• 2 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• Chili powder
• Grated cheese of your choosing 

1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees
2. Cut the bell peppers in half and lay on a cookie sheet, face up
3. Spread olive oil on the peppers. It is easiest to drizzle olive oil across all the pepper halves and then individually move the peppers until they are covered with oil.
4. Place the peppers in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, dice the onion and cloves of garlic. You don't want the pieces to be too large.
6. Saute the onions, garlic and a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan.
7. Chop the carrots and celery and add to the pan with the onion and garlic.
8. After about 5 minutes, or when the vegetables are partially cooked, drain and add the can of kidney beans.
9. Next add the can of diced tomatoes. 
10. Add your desired amount of chili powder, I think I used 2 teaspoons but it is up to you how spicy you want the filling to be.
11. Once the vegetables are mostly cooked (after about 15 minutes), remove the peppers from the oven and spoon the vegetable medley into each pepper.
12. Cover each pepper with cheese and return the tray to the oven for another 5-10 minutes.
13. Remove from the oven and enjoy!

You could really add whatever you want to the stuffing. That's the beauty of this recipe, it can be altered so easily. Just make some chili or add some ground turkey! This recipe was adapted from Pippa Middleton's book, Celebrate. Remember, this is a judge-free zone and it's not news that I have a small British obsession....

Watermelon Strawberry Sangria

What's summer without sangria? Better yet, what's work-life balance without an office sangria contest? I've only made sangria from scratch once before and I've mostly just had sangria from a local Thai restaurant so my sangria taste buds are not finely tuned yet.

Thus I turned to the experts: Joy the Baker and my family. What typically happens on family vacay is we all want to relax and drink beers or wine and for some reason worry these things won't be readily available to us so we all bring beer or wine or drink recipes and just end up with a lot of beverages because we never drink as much as we say we will or want to (I guess that's a good thing though). 

So I made this sangria and tried a glass straight away. Wow does that packs a punch! Hint: definitely let it sit overnight to absorb some of the fruit flavors. This turned out very refreshing and cool. Using about half a watermelon to create four cups of juice and some puréed strawberries as well, it provides a cool but sweet flavor. Citrus juices compliment the sweet well and cut the bite of the vodka. 

Now, this was for a competition so I prepared well and made very precise lemon slices for presentation purposes. The competition had about seven sangrias and of course we all sampled each others prior to the audience judging. It's amazing how many different kinds of sangria there are! There was another watermelon one but it was completely different from this one, and equally delicious I might add. 

Although I got a lot of compliments and even some popular votes, alas mine was not award winning. I really wanted to label this "Joy the Baker's Award Winning Sangria" but I guess I'll keep on trying. The winner, however, had quite the eclectic combination of liquors, even tequila! Usually that's a deal breaker for me but it worked here very well (clearly since it won the judges and audience prizes).

Well, with summer coming to a close, it seemed appropriate to end with a summer drink. As far as I'm concerned, September is fall. Even though it's still warm and technically summer for three weeks of the month, I say bring on the pumpkin! 

Pumpkin coffee, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin picking, apple picking, apple cider, cider donuts, it goes on and on (and in an increasingly digressive fashion).  

Panna Cotta with Blueberries and Honey

I've made a concerted effort to learn new things about cooking and baking (and drinking) by attending a lot of 'foodie' events lately. It turns out food is a  passion of mine and not just making it but learning about it and of course eating it. It's good for the body and soul. And I'm signed up for a cake decorating class in a couple months so hopefully then I can make pretty things too!

At any rate, when I went to a foodie event over the summer, I met Hedy Goldsmith. She was hilarious and amazing and I pretend we're friends. She made us panna cotta, a yogurt dessert that I'd never experienced. I had hoped to make this sooner but alas life got in the way. 

I do not yet own her cookbook so I google searched for recipes and found one on Smitten Kitchen. Success! I even have left over gelatin from the Fourth of July so was practically set. 

This is one of those recipes that is very precise. When working with gelatin, you can't mess around because it's actually science and not just fake it til you make it science. If it isn't gelatinous, not much you can do. Much like dead yeast and bread (see Parker House rolls experiment). 

So I payed special attention to this recipe and taste tested it along the way. It really tasted like sour cream to me. Granted I think most Greek yogurts have the consistency of sour cream but the plain ones actually resemble its taste. This is where taste testing is important. I added more sugar to make it sweeter and then vanilla as well. I still wasn't convinced but decided that maybe I could flavor it up with some toppings. 

Once it was set, I sampled a small amount of pannacotta that I had set aside. It tasted sweeter but still pretty plain. I added some blueberries on top and doused it in honey--probably toooo much honey, and then garnished with some fresh mint (woah there, gettin fancy). 

All in all this dessert was a nice change of pace from very sweet desserts and was quite refreshing. It's also very versatile because you could add just about any fruit or syrup to this. It's almost like a fancy parfait actually. Props to Hedy for introducing me to this!

For the recipe:

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/04/yogurt-panna-cotta-with-walnuts-and-honey/

Berry Muffins

It's August. When did that happen? Wasn't it just June like a second ago? Now's the time when we realize we still have a zillion things on our summer bucket lists and seemingly very little time to complete them. Although I hear September stays warm for a little while but my summer scheme refuses to remember this.

Browning the butter, it smells so good! 

One of the great things about summer is all the fresh produce. I managed to utilize rhubarb season (I'm clinging to that season by the last two stalks in the grocery store) but there are also an abundance of peaches, blueberries and strawberries. Mondays are rough. Muffin Mondays are awesome. 

Strawberries and blueberries make a patriotic mix

I didn't think I'd have enough blueberries for these breakfast treats so I chopped up some strawberries too, thinking it would make half the muffins blueberry and half strawberry. Oooor just mixing the two to make berry muffins. I think this resembles and possibly beats Starbucks berry coffee cake. The muffins have a crumbly topping and it was pretty plain sounding so I added some cinnamon to make it more cobblery. I think this would be great with a crisp topping with oats involved. Dizzy daydreams of baking. 

My hands are clean, I swear

I also think this would be delicious with some rhubarb sauce drizzled on top but that would require me to make it with those last stalks of rhubarb. More on that soon, apparently it also requires some rosé--oh darn. 

The final product! Muffin Mondays may become a thing in my life 

Fish Curry

Remember that time I went to Hawaii and ate lots of fish? I do! And now, 3 months later, I finally enacted one of my Hawaii cooking bucket list items: fish curry! Now, I'm as white as they get (way to go Ireland) but I learned from the best--my friend's mom! She showed me step by step how to make this and I took copious notes on my phone.

Now, I've been gradually accruing ingredients and equipment since I returned: rice cooker, fish sauce, curry paste, rice and coconut milk. All that was needed was the fresh stuff: fish, vegetables, and lime leaves.  I actually didn't get lime leaves, I got a lime with full intention of skinning it but ultimately I did not. 

First you cook the vegetables in the fish sauce, spices (curry, lime, sugar and maybe whatever else you're feeling, experiment!), and the coconut milk. Preferably you only add the thicker part of the coconut milk (don't shake the can) but physics is against you so I would suggest pouring it into a separate bowl first. Then you get the watery part into the bowl and can add the creamy part into the pot (things I didn't do). Cover and cook until the veggies are almost done. Fish cooks quickly so when the vegetables are nearly ready, sample the sauce to adjust your spices (again, things I should have done). Add more curry for more spice and more coconut milk if it's too hot. Add the fish to the mixture and cool until opaque. You can use a variety of fishes but white fish works best. 

 

This whole time, you should have your rice cooker cooking away. It takes a surprising amount of time for rice to finish cooking. 

Once the fish is cooked, serve up some rice and pour the curry over top. It's so delicious!! Now when I make this again, I'll do things differently (aka pay attention to those parentheses I wrote in above). Mine came out a little bland and watery (I told you, I'm white) so I will separate the milk and add more spices to it the next time around. It still looks pretty though!!