Sunday, June 14, 2009

stuffed peppers

Cookbook Challenge
One more down.... 205 to go (and oh damn, I just bought 3 more cookbooks! Back to 208 to go)
I made some stuffed peppers from this cookbook:
Get Togethers, a cookbook celebrating Friends, Family & Food.




In September, I am supposed to walk in the 3Day-60mile, Susan G. Komen, breast cancer walk. I haven't trained like I should, nor raised money like I should. I was thinking: my dad is not well, I have two preemies grand babies in Connecticut that I'm going to see (in 2 weeks YAY!! I'm flying to the east coast), a third grand baby on the way in September, this, that, this that.... excuse after excuse!
but last week when I was up in Washington, I did a training walk with my sister in law and I got RE-ENERGIZED. So, I've been very faithful with a training schedule in the past week.
Tues: 3 miles
Thurs: 3 miles
Saturday: 6.5 miles
Sunday: 4.2 miles

The one that killed me? Today/Sunday. the 6.5 on Saturday was okay, but having to get up and walk again this morning? I ached. LOL
There are a lot of hills around here....so it's good for training.
I'll just keep plugging along. I'll be there in Seattle on September 11 to walk. I figure I ache, but women and men with breast cancer (or any cancer) have ached much more than I with sore muscles, so I shouldn't complain.

I have downloaded podcasts of

"The Splendid Table" (click on it to see their web-site ) on my Mp3 player to listen to as I walk.
Today I listened to a program from February 28: A trip to Mexico.


Not that my stuffed peppers have anything in common with authentic Mexican cooking, but I thought it funny that I was going to blog today about my very Americanized version of what I thought"could be" a Mexican dish,and then ended up listening to several proud Mexican Chefs and food historians and ended up feeling embarrassed that I call this a Mexican dish.

If you haven't heard this Splendid Table program...go to the archives and listen. It will make you understand that we do NOT ONE THING right in how we Americans make and cook Mexican food. It was really interesting and included a short interview with Diana Kennedy, the "grand dame" of Mexican Cuisine. I have 2 of her cookbooks, they are pretty new and I haven't had a chance to sit down and look thru them, but now I can't wait. I do have a love of the history of regional cooking.

My stuffed peppers were really good, even if they weren't authentic.
Here's to "authentic" Mexican cooking and to lots of walking.



The Peppers:
They're so pretty. Bell peppers and Anaheim.



The fillings




The white rice mixture goes into the Anaheim peppers.







The ground beef/rice mixture with chipolte-powder seasoning goes in the bell peppers.




Ready to go into the oven.


On the plate and ready to eat. Mmmmmm...

Chili Cheese Rice Bake

3 cups cooked rice
1 4oz can diced green chilies
1 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups grated jack cheese
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

In a bowl, mix the sour cream, chilies and salt. In buttered 1 1/2 qt. casserole dish, spread half the rice. Over this sprinkle 1/2 the jack and top with 1/2 the sour cream mixture. Repeat this layer and then bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Sprinkle cheddar over the top and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

* You can make this as a side dish and it's really good. For the peppers I just mixed it all together and stuffed the Anaheim peppers and baked them. These were my favorite.
This rice dish is one I got from my friend and Friday friend, Barbara Brown of Buckeye, Arizona. Barb laughs more than anyone I know. She can find the bright side of anything.


**********************

Saucy Stuffed Peppers

3/4 ground beef
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic salt
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup cooked rice
1 16-oz can tomato paste
3 large green peppers
1 6-oz can tomato juice

Brown the ground beef with the salt, garlic salt and onion in a skillet, stirring until crumbly; drain. Stir in the rice, tomato paste and 1/3 cup water; simmer for 10 minutes. Cut the bell peppers half lengthwise and clean out the seeds. Boil in salted water for 5 minutes or until tender-crisp. Fill the bell pepper halves with the beef mixture and arrange in a foil-lined shallow 9x11-inch baking dish. Drizzle the tomato juice over the peppers and bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes.

*I added some chipolte-chili powder, which gave them some extra spiciness.
These Saucy peppers came from the Get Together cookbooks.

10 comments:

Lara said...

How serendipitous! I was just searching for a stuffed pepper recipe and came across this in my feed reader. It's just what I was looking for!

Netts Nook said...

You go girl you can do it keep training. Your pepper look perfect. Yummy

Sadie said...

We'll make sure you keep training in CT. We live on top of a hill so you can get a hill work out in.

Lyndas recipe box said...

Such yummy looking peppers...they look perfect!
Good luck on all the training!

Mary Bergfeld said...

Keep at the training. You're burning lots of calories and that means you can have second helpings of your wonderful peppers. Enjoy the day.

Mary | Deep South Dish said...

Yummolicious!!

Karen said...

That rice dish sounds really good. It'd be good too for a filling for chile rellenos. Mmmm!

teresa said...

Way to go on the walk, I've always wanted to do something like that! The peppers look so good. I really want to try the white filling, it looks so good. Your beef stuff peppers are really similar to how I make them and they are divine!

Cathy said...

Authentic or not, your peppers look delicious and are just the way I like them.

Good luck with the walk. My daughter did it several years ago and said that it was an amazing experience.

Sherri Murphy said...

Beautiful and very interesting. Different than the boring ones I make.

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