Another Stuffed Pepper Success

For dinner tonight, I made a recipe that I got from my "fat doctor" aka Metabolic Medical Center.  It's low carb and turned out to be something that I definitely want to make again and again! I made a couple of changes which probably upped the fat content.  Once again, I apologize for not having any pics.  Rick just got a new laptop, and I haven't been brave enough to try to sync my camera....especially after my most recent sync of my iphone that wiped out everything.  You gotta love technology.  It's awesome until something dies.  Anyway...back to the peppers....  They combined two things that I love:  stuffed peppers and Philly Cheesesteak!  It was so good that Rick even ate all his Baby Bella Mushrooms (and he hates mushrooms)!  You can either do one pepper per person or have 1/2 per person depending on the size of the peppers.

Here's what I did..

Philly Cheesteak Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients
8 oz Sliced Roast Beef
2 Large Green Peppers
1 Sweet Onion, diced
4 oz Baby Bell Mushrooms, diced
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil (I used our garlic-infused one)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
4 slices of provolone cheese
6-cheese blend shredded (Italian blend)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions
Preheat oven to 400F.

Slice peppers in half lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds

Heat olive oil in a large pan.  Add garlic, onions, mushrooms, and salt and pepper.  Satue until onions and mushrooms are caramelized (around 20 minutes).

Slice roast beef into thin strips and add to the pan.  Cook for 5-10 minutes.

Sprinkle each half of the peppers with the 6 cheese blend.  Fill each pepper with another

Fill each pepper with the meat mixture until they are nearly overflowing.  Top each pepper with a slice of provolone cheese.

Bake on a baking sheet for 15-20 minutes until the cheese on top is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Bow Tie Pasta with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato

Since I've found my way back to our blog after all these months (years???), I've been a little surprised to come across several blog posts that never got to see the light of day for one reason or another.  Of course, at this point, I have no idea what those reasons might have been, but I thought I'd post them for you to enjoy. I decided to start with this one because the recipe is one of the first ones that I ever made back in the late 90s when I was just a fledgling cook who had no clue about how do a meal that more than one dish with a side salad...lol. 

Let me present the post that I started almost two years ago......

In order to use some of that bacon that we had left over, I dusted off one of the first recipes that I ever tried from epicurious.com for Bow Ties with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato. When I first started cooking, I made a lot of pasta with a can of diced tomatoes, garlic, and white wine for the sauce.  I really liked this recipe because the bacon made it taste different.  Over the years, I've made a few changes to the original recipe, and here's what I've come up.  I hope that you enjoy it!

Bow Tie Pasta with Bacon, Onion, and Tomato

Ingredients

• 6 slices of bacon, chopped fine
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 pound large bow tie pasta
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 1/3 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Directions

Cook pasta in salted water and cook pasta per directions on package until the al dente.

In a deep skillet cook the bacon over moderate heat, stirring, until it is crisp and transfer it with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet, add the oil, and cook the onion over moderate heat, stirring, until it is golden brown. Add the tomatos into the onion mixture with the 1/4 cup white wine, the red pepper flakes, and salt to taste, simmer the sauce, stirring, for 5 minutes, and stir in the parsley, basil, and the bacon. Drain the pasta well, add it to the sauce, and toss. Add the Parmesan and toss the pasta again.

Enjoy!

Saucy Chicken Salad

Don't let the title fool you...this chicken salad is not runny at all.  It's just got a kick to it (in the form of a little horseradish) to make it what I'd call saucy.  With summertime strolling into our neck of the woods, I woke up with chicken salad on my mind.  Everyone is so different when it comes to chicken salad preferences.  Some like grapes in it.  Some like dill relish in it.  Some like it with no mayo at all.  Rick and I discussed a couple of ingredients that we felt were essential (it's gotta have celery for some crunch!), but I was still unsure of which direction I wanted to take.  I don't think I've ever really made chicken salad before (or at least anything that stood out in my mind) so as usual, I hit the internet looking for ideas.  I came across two recipes that caught my eye and inspired me to play with them a bit to come up with something worth sharing with the world.

The first one that I liked is almost perfect on its own.  The big problem with it is that I am not a fan of boiled eggs (sliced or diced or whatever) in my chicken salad or potato salad for that matter.  I'm also not crazy about the grapes either.  What really intrigued me, though, was mixing the half and half with mayo for the dressing.  What a great way to kill that overpowering mayo tang and create something that is more creamy!  The second one that I found was from my one of my old stand-by recipe sites, www.myrecipes.com.  Adding a little horseradish to chicken salad would give a unexpected kick to plain ole chicken salad. 

In order to make the whole process go faster, I bought a rotisserie chicken at Publix this morning so that I wouldn't have to deal with cooking any chicken.  Doing so also provided us with some meat to snack on while I was pulling the meat.  For the nuts (gotta have that crunch!), I used chopped walnuts because I had them in the refrigerator.  Pecans would work just as well if not better.

This recipe isn't totally fabulous for my diet (especially with the half and half), but I was really impressed with the final product.  I'm looking forward to having it for lunch during the shortened work week.  I may even share a little bit with Rick. 

Here's what I did....

Saucy Chicken Salad
Ingredients
1 cooked rotisserie chicken, meat pulled from the bones and skin removed
1/3 cup minced green onion
2 celery hearts chopped
the juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Dressing
2/3 cup light mayo
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons prepared horseradish

Directions
In a large bowl, mix chicken, green onion, celery and lemon juice together.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In a separate smaller bowl, mix dressing ingredients together.  After the chicken mix has been in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, combine the dressing with the chicken mixture and nuts.  Cover and chill for an additional hour before serving.

Enjoy!

PS:  Sorry for the pathetic excuse for a pic up there, but my desktop has died and our netbook is on its last leg.  I'm relying on my iphone for pics for now.

PSS:  Did I mention that we are engaged????  So excited!!!!!

My new favorite salsa

I'm back from the dead!  Okay, not really dead, but with work and working out (and I went on a diet last year....down 30 pounds!), I haven't made time to blog. Sadly in my "posts" here there are several started ones from last year that were neglected and never finished.  I've decided, though, that I'm going to TRY to do at least one recipe a week. 

Another thing that has caught my attention is pinterest!  I'm sure that you've heard of it, and once I got the hang of it, I realized what an excellent resource it is for all kinds of things!  My favorite thing to do is to search for recipes (Imagine that, right?). Pinterest has totally put in direct contact with other bloggers out there that I would probably never heard of.   My first amazing find was a salsa.  As you may remember, I'm a huge salsa fan, and while I enjoyed the one I made way back when, it was still missing something.  Then I saw a pin for this salsa.  I was a little skeptical of one of the ingredients (the honey) and couldn't believe that I didn't think of another (the cumin).  This one is even easier because it utilitzes diced canned tomatoes along with Rotel tomatoes (always a favorite of mine).  I've made a couple of subtle changes when I've made it for Rick and I or for our neighbors, but it always turns out perfect!  I hope that you enjoy!

Super Easy Salsa
Ingredients
1  14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 10 oz can orginal Rotel
1/2  sweet small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled & smashed
1 jalapeno (sliced)
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
medium size handful cilantro leaves, washed
juice of 1 lime

Directions:
Put all the ingredients in the base of a food processor or good blender and pulse to combine for 30 seconds or so until all the ingredients are finely chopped and salsa is desired consistency.                  

Crab Quiche

Tonight, I made our first quiche.  I had a bunch of left over eggs from Christmas baking, and I decided to try something new to use them.  Sadly, I do not have a picture (even though I got a new camera for Christmas) because it went so fast.  I used this Southern Living recipe as a guide and made a couple of my own changes.  I can't wait to make some more!!!  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did!

Here's what I did...

Crab Quiche

Ingredients

2 cans lump crab meat, drained and chopped

4 green onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup of 6 Cheese Blend

3 large eggs

1 cup half and half

1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning

1/2 tablespoon lemon peel (dried)

1/8 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 frozen pie crust

Olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F.  Saute green onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium high heat for two minutes.  Add crabmeat, Old Bay, lemon peel, and cayenne pepper for two minutes.  

Whisk eggs and half and half together in a large bowl.  Add crab mixture and cheese to the bowl and mix together.  Pour mixture into pie crust and bake for 40 minutes in the oven.  Remove from the oven and let stand for 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

When I went home for Christmas, my stepsister made this really yummy dip for us to munch on before dinner.  It was so good that I had to share it here.  We made a little change to it by baking some extra mozzarella cheese on top of it.  I could've just had it for dinner!

Buffalo Chicken Dip
Ingredients
8oz package of cream cheese
1/2 cup of ranch dressing
1/2 cup hot sauce
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (with an additional 1/4 cup to sprinkle on top)
2 cans of chicken breast (drained)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Mix all ingredients except for the extra 1/4 cup of cheese in a large baking dish.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle 1/4 cup of cheese on top.  Return to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.  

Serve with tortilla chips.

Enjoy!