Stuffed Sweet Peppers

We got a bunch of mini sweet peppers at Costco and I dug around the fridge/pantry finding things to stuff them with. Here's what I came up with.

Stuffed Mini Sweet Peppers

2 lbs mini sweet peppers
greek yogurt - i only had the single serving ones so I used three of those
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp seasoned salt
2 c shredded cheese
crumbled bacon - full disclosure I used bacos

Preheat to 350* and spray a muffin pan with cooking spray. Cut off the tops/stems of peppers and clean out the ribs and seeds inside. Combine yogurt, garlic powder, seasoned salt, cheese and bacon. I heated them in the microwave for 30 seconds so they'd mix well. Put that mixture into a ziplock baggie and cut off a corner so you can squeeze it into each of the peppers like frosting. Put the stuffed peppers into the muffin tin and bake for 20 minutes.

These are super yummy.  I made the boys PB&J because our bread is about to expire and we need to get through it...and i'm lazy.  Jeff worked late tonight and I didn't feel like making something for dinner for myself. I ate like 7 of these.

When did this turn into a food blog? it's not, I swear. 4 days out of 7 we eat bagel dogs (omg seriously amazing), nuggets and other frozen delicacies. At least once a week (read, twice) we drive through our dinner. BUT...once a week I actually remember to thaw a protein of some sort and I cook. I cook a LOT of that one thing so we can eat it for several meals too.

If you try these peppers, let me know what you think!

Cheesy Sausage & Spinach Casserole

Made a really yummy breakfast casserole for Easter yesterday and thought I’d share. Super easy and I already had everything I needed…except half and half because who keeps half and half on hand??

nope, thats not our fancy Easter, Jesus-approved flatware...I'm having leftovers for
lunch today at the office.

Sausage & Spinach Breakfast Casserole

1 lb breakfast sausage – I used the kind that comes in that tube thing
1 package stuffing mix, prepared – I used the cornbread flavor
3 eggs
1 bag chopped spinach, thawed and dried
1 ½ cups half and half
8oz of your favorite sprinkle cheese – we used Monterey jack cause that what I had
A couple cloves of garlic – I used minced as I always have that available and I’m lazy
2 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Prepare stuffing and set aside.  Cook the sausage over medium heat until it isn’t pink anymore.  Add in garlic and smell the yumminess. Drain the fat…unless you like the fat in there still fatty.  Mix in spinach and prepared stuffing until it’s all combined.  Dump into greased baking dish and cover with sprinkle cheese.  Combine eggs and half and half in small bowl and pour over casserole.  Shake dish around so that the egg mixture really gets in there.  Bake for 30 minutes at 400*.  The cheese on top should be lightly toasted but not burnt.  Sprinkle the parmesan on top and bake for another 5-10 minutes until it gets bubbly.  Let it sit for a few minutes before serving so it can set up.

This was a hit with our family.  Even my sister who doesn't like stuffing tried it and liked it. We ate it a couple hours later since the fam was running late so I’m anxious to try it piping hot next time. You can certainly add onion or spices to this if you wanted to but I think it was fine without anything additional. I think I’d consider adding another egg next time since I really like eggs but it’s great as-is.  

Ground beef and broccoli casserole

Got broccoli at bountiful baskets today along with some mushrooms. We had some ground beef so i set to work on dinner. Because i had fresh mushrooms and broccoli, i used them but you could certainly use canned mushrooms and frozen broccoli.

2 pounds ground beef
Onion, chopped
Few crowns of broccoli, chopped
Container of mushrooms, sliced
salt & pepper to taste

Sauce:
8 ounces cheese, shredded - we had that mexican blend, so clearly any type is fine
1/2 cup mayonnaise - i did not claim this was healthy
1/2 cup heavy cream - ditto

Brown the ground beef, onion and mushrooms. Drain and season with salt and pepper. Steam broccoli if fresh, thaw if frozen.  Drain the broccoli and stir in ground beef mixture. In a large enough bowl, place all of the sauce ingredients, microwave about 2 1/2 minutes, or until melted and smooth, stirring every minute. Add to the broccoli mixture and mix well; adjust the seasoning to taste. Bake at 350º 20 minutes until hot and bubbly.  This turned out great. Next time I'll add more broccoli, but I used all I had so it couldn't be helped. Also, I think we'll brown the meat in more seasonings so it has more flavor than just "meat". Maybe one of those onion soup packets to be easy.  Overall though, we loved this. Great flavor and super filling!

Cleaning out the pantry

We've had some difficulty using our Bountiful Basket in the last couple weeks. Halloween, soccer practice, soccer photos, birthdays, chi omega commitments, etc, etc, etc has all taken over our lives and we've ended up having Little Ceasars $5 hot and ready on more than one night. More than one night, a week. 

Today is Veteran's Day and I got to hang out with the boys today - more on that in another post.  It was great to take advantage of a brother-nap to do some cooking today.  I always do pot roast in the crock pot and have never, ever done it in the oven so this was new.  I just didn't have enough time to wait for the crock pot.  Anyway, I had apples, carrots, potatoes and celery to get through so my goal was to use them all for dinner/dessert.

Oven Pot Roast

 

3-4 lb pork roast, mine was boneless

1 can cream of whatever you have on hand soup

3 potatoes, cubed

3 carrots, chopped

3 stalks of celery, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup water

12 oz soda, whatever you have on hand is fine...i obviously used diet coke because it's amazing

 

Put roast in baking dish and spread veggies around it.  Sprinkle S&P over meat. Combine soup, soda, and water and pour it over roast and veggies. Bake for 3 hours on 350 and you're done.

 

You can really use whatever veggies you have on hand but these are my go-to pot roast veggies and just happened to be the ones i had leftover from my baseket.



 

Baked Apples

6 small apples
2 cups of diet orange, lemon-lime, or similar soda

Core apples and cut in half.  Place apples, skin up in baking dish and pour soda over apples.  Bake for an hour at 350 and wait for the amazing smells.

Your house will smell amazing when you bake this, especially if you use a sweeter apple. I have no idea the exact type of apple I used but I think they may have been baking apples.  I've done this with tart apples as well and they always turn out great.  If you want them mushier, do them for an hour. If you want them more 'sliceable' stick to around 45 minutes.  I used diet sierra mist, but anything like diet orange or diet ginger ale would be great too.

Spicy Spaghetti Squash

1 medium to large spaghetti squash
1 lb ground beef
1 packet taco seasoning
1 red onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 can green chiles
1 can corn, drained
1 can black beans, drained
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 cup cilantro, minced
3 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 Tbsp sea salt

Preheat to 325.  Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Place cut sides down on a baking dish and cook for 50 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes.  Use fork and scrape out strands of squash.

Brown the ground beef with taco seasoning and set aside.  Saute onions, green chilis and red pepper in a couple tsp of olive oil for 5 minutes. Add corn, beans, and chili powder and saute for another 3 minutes.  Add salt, lime, cilantro and strands of squash and saute another 3 minutes. Add meat to mixture and combine.

Scoop mixture into squash halves.

omg guys. this was so so yummy. jeffrey ate a TON of it and kept saying how amazing it was. thanks to the taco seasoning, chilis and chili powder there was some great heat so adjust that if you prefer less spice. i thought it was perfect!

On Our Table

Made a really yummy meal tonight and anytime something is successful I feel the need to broadcast it.  Our bountiful basket had sweet potatoes in it and I had spinach and chicken breasts ready to go. 

Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts
4 chicken breasts
1 bag frozen spinach, thawed and drained dry
1.5 cups shredded cheese
2 Tbsp minced garlic
salt
pepper
nutmeg
thyme
paprika
(all seasonings are to taste)

Preheat over to 350.
Cut a slit in the chicken and place in baking dish.  Combine spinach and all other ingredients in bowl and heat in mircrowave to mix it all together. Spoon mixture into chicken opening.  Sprinkle S&P on chicken and bake for 40 minutes or until chicken is done.

This turned out so great. The spinach was super tasty, though I may season the chicken more next time. Jeffrey loved it too.

Sweet Potato Fries
3 sweet potatoes
2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
paprika
salt
garlic powder
pepper
cayenne pepper
cumin

Preheat oven to 450.
Slice sweet potato into 1/4 inch pieces and toss all ingredients into bowl until fries are completely covered in the mixture.  Cover baking sheet in parchment paper.  Spread fries over baking sheet so they are in one layer.  Bake for 25 minutes at 450, turning fries sometimes in the middle of cooking. they are good a little soft or a bit crispy, so it's up to you how long you bake them.

If you make this recipe, let me know how it turns out for you.  I have to stop posting now before jeffrey eats all of our fries. Enjoy!

Low Carb Chili

I had lots of success dropping some lbs when I cut out carbs - not completely but well, significantly.  The tough thing is coming up with plenty of options for meals. Well, that's what I find tough.

Now that I'm trying to get back on board with low carb eating, I thought it would be helpful to post about the random things I put together. I really enjoy cooking, but I'm not great at blogging recently so I'm therefore not great at chronicling what I've made so I can replicate it.

I love chili and the spicier the better as far as we're concerned. I miss the beans but that's ok, clearly I'll survive.

I couldn't find a recipe online that suited me - mostly because I have about 12 ingredients on hand and several of them include various flavors of crystal light packets. For that reason, many of the recipes I found would have been asking a bit much of our pantry. I was too lazy to run out to get supplies so this is what I came up with for chili tonight.

2.5 lbs of ground beef
1 can tomatoes
1 cup chopped celery
3 cloves garlic - or 2T minced garlic
1 T chili powder
1 can green chilis
2 cups beef broth

Brown ground beef along with seasoning and garlic. drain after all browned. add in broth, celery, chilis and tomatoes and simmer for an hour. You can add more or less broth depending on how you like your chili. Liquid always forms when you simmer so go easy on the broth would be my recommendation. 

I know there are ways to make this more low carb, but I didn't investigate enough. if you have any suggestions, let me know!!