Stuffed Peppers

My sister & I absolutely love my mom's stuffed pepper recipe.  I think I've made it one other time but it was years ago so I thought I was due.  All in all, they turned out pretty well -- not as good as my mom's but that's not surprising! 

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
2 eggs
various seasonings (garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, pepper, etc.)
7-8 peppers
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 an onion, diced
3 cans tomato soup

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Wash the peppers, cut off the tops & cut out the seeds & pith.

Cut a hole in the bottom of the peppers so the water can drain as they cook.

How fresh & tasty do those peppers look?!

Now you'll need to prepare the meat.  Combine the meat, eggs, rice & seasonings together.
Roll the meat into baseball-sized balls & put them inside the peppers.

Saute onions & celery in a large pot. 

When they're soft, add the 3 cans of tomato soup.  Also, add about a half a can of water.  Mix together.  Add the peppers & meat to the pan & put some of the sauce on top of the meat balls while they cook. 

Cover the pot & cook for 2-3 hours.  I took them out of the oven after a little over an hour, squeezed out some of the water from the peppers & put a bit more sauce over them.  Put them back in the oven for another hour or so.

Take them out of the oven, serve with mashed potatoes & enjoy!  These are a perfect winter dish & are pretty easy to make.

Spicy Whiskey BBQ Sliders

This was my first attempt at a recipe from The Pioneer Woman. I decided to do it on a Sunday so that I would have a bigger audience of taste testers. I made 12 sliders & 10 were eagerly eaten so I would say this recipe was a good one!

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef (I wanted to use bison but it was triple the price so I went with lean beef!)
12 small rolls
Butter Salt & pepper
1 onion, diced
1/3 cup jarred jalapeños
1/2 cup whiskey
1 cup BBQ sauce

Directions:
Divide the meat into 12 patties. Season the patties with salt & pepper.

Melt a little bit of butter in a pan & cook the patties in 2 separate batches so they cook evenly. Cook them at medium-high for 3-4 minutes on each side. Make sure that they cook thoroughly but without burning. When you're done with the first batch, cook the next set of 6 sliders.

Set the sliders aside & cook the onions in the grease from the burgers. Because I used such lean beef, I didn't have much grease. If you use fattier beef, you may want to drain some of the grease. Cook the onions for 3-4 minutes, or until tender.

Add the whiskey & deglaze the pan. Cook the onions in the whiskey for 2-3 minutes. I'm not a huge whiskey fan (I had to get it from my dad because we don't even have any here!) so I was a little nervous to cook with it. Even though the smell seemed potent enough to get me drunk, it was a much milder taste once it had cooked off.

While the onions are cooking, butter the buns & place them in a separate pan to brown.

Add the jalapeños & BBQ sauce to the onions & stir together.

Place all the burgers into the pan & let it all simmer together. Flip the burgers so the sauce fully coats the burgers.

When making your sandwiches, make sure to get plenty of sauce, onions & jalapeños on every bun. We had the sliders with some tots. Now I know that my taste testers aren't very picky (their alternative options involve take out & some sort of personal effort!) but these seemed to be a hit!

Split Pea Soup

Split pea is my favorite soup but I hadn't ever made it so when I got a ham bone from a co-worker I figured I'd give it a shot.  It turned out so well & was super easy!

Ingredients:
1 package of split green peas
1 potato (diced)
3 (skinny) carrots (diced)
2 stalks of celery (diced)
7 cups of water
1 ham bone
1/2 onion (diced)
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
A bit of a few other seasonings (paprika, chili powder, marjoram, garlic powder)

Place the onions, potatoes, carrots, celery & seasonings into a crock pot.

Rinse the green peas.  Add the 7 cups of water & the rinsed green peas to the crock pot & mix together.  Add the ham bone.  Cover & cook on low for 8ish hours.

Take the ham bone out & use two forks to shred the meat.  Add it back to the pot, stir & serve.  We ate it with pumpernickel bread & a caprese salad... in seasonally appropriate dishes :)

Enjoy!

Avocado Chicken Salad

I saw a photo of this on Pinterest and HAD to try it.  I love chicken salad & I figured adding avocado would make it even better!  I wasn't at home when I made it & they didn't have any mayonnaise so I simply substituted the avocado for the mayo.  When I make this again, I'll probably add a tiny bit of mayo because it was a little dry.  Not only is this much healthier than traditional chicken salad but the avocado flavor was a really good addition.

I simply shredded rotisserie chicken, diced up a cucumber, sliced up green onions & smashed up an avocado.

They didn't have many seasonings so I just added some garlic powder & sea salt.  When I make it again, I'll probably add some pepper, cayenne pepper & paprika. I mixed everything together and added some olive oil.

We ate it on wheat ciabatta crostinis with olive oil & sea salt -- LOVE. 

Paula Deen's Cream Cheese Blossom

I got this recipe from a coworker...who got it from Paula Deen.  I made it for New Year's weekend but the colors certainly would work well to take to a Christmas party.

Ingredients:
2 8oz. packages of cream cheese, room temperature
20 pistachios
1 clove of garlic
3/4 container of pesto
sun dried tomatoes
package of slices provolone
You'll also need a medium sized bowl, saran wrap & a food processor

The first step is to line the bowl with saran wrap.  I used two pieces to be sure that the entire dish was covered.

Place a slice of provolone at the bottom of the bowl.  Then line the rest of the bowl with provolone, reserving 3 slices for later.

Combine the cream cheese, pistachios & garlic in a food processor.  Spread about 1/4 of the mixture over the provolone slices.

Add the pesto layer over the cream cheese layer.

Add about half of the remaining cream cheese over the pesto.  I forgot to photograph this step.  Chop the sundried tomatoes in the food processor (add oil if they're too dry) and add them over the cream cheese layer. 

Add the rest of the cream cheese over the sundried tomatoes.  I think the layers were supposed to be distinct and separate but mine were not.  I'm not sure if I had too many sundried tomatoes or what.  Obviously the proportions do not affect anything but the aesthetics so it's really nothing to worry about.

Place the remaining slices of provolone on top of the final cream cheese layer.

Wrap up the cheese ball & place in the freezer until firm.

Flip the ball over and place on a plate.  And, if you're anything like me, serve using your seasonally appropriate spreaders :)

The layers aren't as distinct as Paula's but the ball was delicious!

Pizzas

I hate New Year's Eve.  I think it's over-priced & over-rated.  I have no interest in buying a new dress, buying a ridiculously expensive ticket and getting mediocre food for an outrageous price.  That being said, this New Year's Eve was exactly what I wanted.  I was in Columbus visiting friends from college.  We had dinner in & watched the ball drop in our friends' apartment before going out to the bars. 

I made a few different pizzas and I thought I'd share the combinations.

The first one I made was caramalized onion, bacon & goat cheese.  I saw a picture on Pinterest and thought it sounded delicious.  Because I was only making half of a pizza so I used 4 slices of bacon and half an onion.  This was the only frying pan that I had so I cut the bacon & cooked them in batches because of the size... just thought I'd clarify that I wasn't using bacon for hobbits.

Once the bacon is done, add in the sliced onions and cook until just tender.  Then you can turn down the heat, sprinkle in some sugar, cover & let cook for about 15 minutes.  You should be sure to stir them occassionally so they don't burn to the pan.

I used a refridgerated thin crust from Pillsbury but you can obviously make your own crust if you're fancier than me!  While the onions are cooking, place the crust in the oven for 5 minutes on 400 degrees.  After 5 minutes, take the crust out and top with the onions, crumbled bacon & crumbled goat cheese.  Put the pizza back in the oven for 6-8 more minutes.  This was pretty rich but quite tasty!

I used the other half of the crust to make a caprese pizza.  For this you cook the crust for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.  Then spread olive oil, sea salt & minced garlic over the crust.  Place thinly sliced tomatoes, pieces of basil & fresh mozzarella on the pizza.  Finally, top all of that with a little bit of shredded asiago cheese & put back in the oven for 6-8 minutes.

Finally, I made a chicken pesto pizza.  Again, cook the crust for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.  Spread pesto over the crust.  Top with shredded chicken & shredded mozzarella & asiago cheese and put back in the over for 6-8 minutes.

These do not take crazy culinary skills.  But obviously they were tasty enough because we couldn't wait to eat the slices before taking photos!

Crock Pot Mexican Chicken

Amanda and I hadn't had a Mexican Fiesta in about a week or so I thought I'd make some chicken for tacos.  The best part about this recipe is that it's so easy!

I attempted a salsa chicken in the crock pot a few months ago & it did NOT turn out well.  I came home (super excited for my Mexican Fiesta) only to find the salsa completely burnt and stuck to the crock pot.  The chicken had to literally be pried from the bottom.  We were disappointed by the lack of our fiesta food, but obviously still had margaritas... the best part of a fiesta anyway.

So this morning, I decided to try the crock pot again for Fiesta time.  It was quite clear that last time I did not have enough liquid (yes, I determined that from the crusted chicken & salsa -- solved that mystery!) so this time I put a can of chicken broth, a can of black beans (with liquid) and a can of corn (with liquid) and a chopped up tomato (for no other reason than I had it & it was about to go bad) into the crock pot.  I added a few seasonings (garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, paprika and cumin), stirred it all together & added 2 breasts of chicken.  I cooked it for 8 hours on low.

Good news -- nothing burned!  I took the chicken out of the crock pot & shredded it with a fork.  I then used a slotted spoon to scoop out the corn & black beans without all the liquid.  The chicken turned out really well.  It was tender & moist.  The corn & black beans were great additions.  It wasn't spicy at all so in hindsight I wish I would've added a little more cayenne pepper & chili powder...but Amanda can attest to the fact that I tend to get a little aggressive with the spice!

We broke tortilla shells apart and layered the chicken on top with some cheese and green onions.  Green onions are a staple in practically every meal in this house!  Could these get any more tasty?!

...YES!  By adding guacamole!  I photographed the open-faced tacos with guacamole but it doesn't seem to be uploading correctly :(

Happy Fiesta-ing!