Enchilada-Style Stuffed Peppers

Let's talk about stuffed peppers. I have tried several kids but they always have ground meat and rice in the recipe which makes them kind of....dry and sad. They are supposed to oozing with goodness, tender, and tasty. These met all the criteria. I got the idea for these enchilada-style peppers from Pinterest, but I just did not like all of the ingredients in the Pinterest recipe. After doing a little online reading, I came up with a recipe that combined elements of four different ones. Rich, aka "the anti-veggie" did like the filling but of course does not like bell peppers. ;-) This recipe easily makes 8 peppers so I highly recommend you consider making only half the recipe, or freezing half of the filling. Or, at least invite some guests over :-) I wanted leftovers so I made 5 peppers and put the rest of the filling away.

To start, you've gotta make some roasted chicken. Drizzle four chicken breasts with olive oil, then sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, garlic salt, chili powder, cumin, paprika, and cayenne pepper. Wrap them in foil and bake at 400 for 45-55 minutes. Cool & shred.

Now, let's make stuffed peppers!

5 large, even-shaped bell peppers in assorted colors (green, red, orange, yellow!)
1 can black beans, drained
1 can corn, drained
1 can Rotel, drained
1 cup finely shredded cheese, plus 1/2 cup for garnish
1 large can mild red enchilada sauce, any brand
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and remove the "white stuff" and the seeds.

Spray a deep covered baking dish with non-stick cooking spray, then place the peppers inside. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, beans, corn, cheese, Rotel, 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce, and the cumin and chili powder. 

Next. generously fill the peppers and pour the remaining enchilada sauce into the bottom of the baking dish.

Bake, covered, at 350 for about 50 minutes, then garnish with cheese and allow about 2-3 minutes for it to melt. 

I served ours with sweet corn tomalito. It's soooooo yummy! One pepper has approximately 325 calories, 8 grams of fat, 33 carbs and 34 grams of protein.

Until you serve with Mexican crema and Wholly Guacamole! Mmmmmmm. So good. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Why am I taking the time to write a post about chocolate chip cookies? Because this recipe is baking soda free, and I'm taking it for granted I'm not the only person who flips over the bag of Tollhouse chocolate morsels and then frowns because I don't have baking soda. Also, the Tollhouse recipe makes about a million cookies. This recipe makes about 2.5 dozen yummy, basic chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1-2/3 cup all-purpose flour, sifted (you can also shake it through a mesh strainer into a  large bowl if you don't have a sifter)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 bag Tollhouse milk chocolate morsels

Preheat the oven to 375. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well-mixed and fluffy. Next, add the flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix on low speed until well incorporated. Stir in the milk chocolate morsels. Drop by generous, rounded teaspoon-fulls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake 9-11 minutes. 10 minutes is the perfect cookie as far as I'm concerned. You will see the edges turning light golden but the top of the cookie should not be. That way once they cool you will still have a soft, chewy cookie instead of a golden rock. Enjoy!

Four-Hour Sick Soup (Aka Chicken Potato Soup)

It's that time of year again and Rich is sick. Every year he gets a bad chest cold sometime between winter and spring, and 3 times since we've been married it's turned into a bad case of pneumonia. Last year's was the worst by far, with him actually being delirious to the point that I wasn't sure if I could get him to Dr. by myself. But I did, and I'm also a Nazi type about illness. We had an amazing Dr. this last time Rich was sick, and he gave me very strict instructions for the next time illness would strike, since Rich is so prone to getting pneumonia. He let out his first cough last night and I went balistic. ;-) I currently have him all doped up and sleeping. Good.

One problem with him when he is sick is that he's so picky. And he will NOT eat chicken noodle soup, or really any other of the popular sickie foods. In an effort to get protein and green leafy veggies down his throat, I came up with a different type of chicken soup. I also made him eat scrambled eggs and spelt toast for breakfast. Lol.

Here's today's soup du jour.

2 skinless chicken breasts, with rib bones
6 cloves fresh garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 lb potatoes, any kind (I prefer yellow or gold, such as honey golds, etc)
1 cup mashed potatoes (leftovers, or store bought)
5 large carrots
32 oz container chicken broth or stock, plus a little extra...1-2 cups.
Fresh rosemary
Fresh Italian parsley
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

I believe that chicken for soup should always be roasted. I don't trust a person who would boil raw chicken for soup. Gross. :-) Spray your crock pot with non-stick cooking spray, then place the chicken breasts inside. Drizzle with about 2 tbsp olive oil, and generously add salt and pepper. Dump the chopped garlic on top. Cook on high for about 3 hours. When the chicken is done, remove the bones and cut it up. There will be a little meat left on the ribs--leave it there. Put the bones back into the crock pot. There will be juices from the chicken left in the crock pot--save them for now! Note: You could also use a deboned rotisserie chicken.

When the chicken is cooked, it's time to start the rest of the soup. Cut up potatoes and carrots into bite-sized pieces. As long as you do not use traditional "white" baking potatoes, you can leave the skin on. Leave the carrot skin on, too. You won't be able to tell the difference. Add the carrots and potatoes to your favorite soup pot, and *just* cover them with chicken broth. Add a generous amount of salt and fresh ground pepper. Toss in a decent-sized sprig of fresh rosemary. Don't rip it all apart, either. You'll be taking it out soon enough.

Bring this to a boil, reduce heat the medium and let it cook for a few minutes until the vegetables are tender. I am going to say 8-10 minutes.

Next toss in some fresh parsley leaves. Remove the icky stems. Only add the leaves.

Next add the chicken.

Now, pour the juices from the crock pot into the soup. Strain it, as shown, to prevent bones or fat from getting in. 

Now, it's time to thicken the soup with the mashed potatoes. Heat about 1 to 1-1/2 cups of leftover mashed potatoes, and whisk in 16 oz of chicken broth. Add to the soup along with any remaining broth until the desired consistency is achieved and add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil.... and the soup is finished. 

Overnight Breakfast Casserole

Break out the crock pot and get ready. This is ridiculously easy, and you can make it so many different ways. It's a hash-brown & egg breakfast casserole. You have two options: you can turn it on low just before bedtime and allow it to cook for 8-10 hours, or you can cook it on high for 3-1/2 hours. The only difference is this: if you cook it overnight, make sure you add an extra 1/2 cup of milk to the eggs. Otherwise you will end up with a very dry, yucky breakfast casserole. I did the speedy version today and we had breakfast for dinner. It's also meatless Monday around here so I did not add any breakfast meat.

2 large, yellow potatoes, peeled and grated (with the cheese grater or a salad shooter)
2 tbsp butter
3/4 c shredded cheddar
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk (3/4 cup for the overnight version)
salt & pepper

Optional: scrambled sausage, crumbled bacon, bell peppers, onions, etc.

Place the potatoes in the crock pot and add the melted butter, cheese, plenty of salt, and a couple dashes of pepper. Stir until the butter is well mixed. This is a lot easier if you use a fork. :) Next, beat the eggs and milk together in a small bowl. I added a dash of salt and pepper to the eggs too. Pour the egg mixture on top of the potatoes. Done. Now let it cook and enjoy.

Salsa Chicken Enchiladas

I wanted to make salsa verde chicken enchiladas, but Rich doesn't care for salsa verde. So, my take on those tasty looking enchiladas is salsa chicken enchiladas. I used my own salsa, which I freeze in 1-cup portions. If you need the recipe click HERE, although I think any salsa would do. Now listen up, kids. These enchiladas aren't spicy and they don't have anything extra yummy in them, like peppers, onions, cilantro, etc, but only because my hubby doesn't like those things. Add those things with liberal abandon if you like them, because it will only make your enchiladas that much yummier. Just make sure you cook them  along with the chicken. :)

Ingredients List:
2 chicken breasts
2 tbsp fresh-squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup mexican crema.

1 cup salsa

1-1/2 cups mexican-style shredded cheese, divided

4 tortillas
salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper

***Note: Make sure to use actual Crema Mexicana!! Sour cream would be alright I suppose....but Crema is where it's at. 

First, take the chicken breasts and drizzle them with olive oil and lime juice. Sprinkle on a liberal amount of salt, then just a little pepper, chili powder, cumin powder, smoked paprika, & the world's smallest dash of cayenne pepper. Drizzle a little more olive oil on top.

 Now wrap them up nice and tight in foil and toss them into a preheated oven. Now you could bake these at 400 for about 45 minutes, but I turned my oven down to 300 degrees because I had about an hour and 20 minutes of errands to run. Oven baked chicken is done when you stab it with a fork and the juices run clear.

When your chicken is almost done, take the mexican crema, salsa, and 1 cup of cheese and stir together. Heat in the microwave or on the stove until it just bubbles and the cheese begins to melt.

Now if you timed things right, your chicken is done, so  use two forks to shred it, then incorporate 3/4 of the salsa mix.

Divide the chicken mixture into quarters, and fill each tortilla. Roll them up and nestle them neatly in a pan. Spoon the remaining salsa mix on top and use the remaining cheese to garnish. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes until the cheese is melted.

Optional side dish: heat up some refried beans and sprinkle with some good Mexican crumbling cheese. Yes, you have to crumble it yourself. It's delicious. 

Now serve it up on paper plates. It's Friday and dishes are out. So go on and eat your yummy Mexican food in peace. 

Winter Eats: Yummy Salad

This is the salad that you will think about eating all morning while you are STARVING as you run your errands. You may even drive past 20+ smoothie joints and drive-thrus (even Chick-Fil-A) on your way home without even being tempted. To me, it's THAT good. Get out your salad tossing bowl, folks, this is a happening salad. If you're making this salad for one person, I recommend halving the recipe. 

6 c. (1 container) Organic Girl Supergreens (baby red & green swiss chard, tat soi, arugula, & spinach)

4-5 tbsp Marie's Spinach Salad dressing (trust me.) 

2 oz diced turkey breast (warm is best)

1/3 apple of choice (I prefer honeycrisp, jazz, or ambrosia), thinly sliced and cut into 1" pieces

1/4 c bleu cheese

3 tbsp dried cranberries

2 tbsp slivered, roasted almonds

Toss your salad green with 1 tbsp dressing at a time, stopping when the greens are lightly coated. Add other ingredients and gently toss. Serve with a warm, crusty baguette or something else equally delicious. 

Jetrocket-Quick Ohio Trip

The year was 2008. A longtime friend of the family made the treacherous journey from Ohio to California, with a toddler in tow and a baby girl on the the way. All because I was getting married. All that to say this: it was my turn to pay a visit. ;-) Off I went, into the wild blue yonder. First of all let me say that traveling in airports is not a big deal, at all. But, for weeks before the trip, I stress out about it. Will I make my connecting flight? Will I have a Todd Beamer moment just before my untimely death? Will I contract a deadly staph infection in those disgusting moments at the TSA walk-through where I am forced to remove my shoes? Frankly, I never worry about most anything when it comes to traveling, because my lovely hubby has a career in Aviation. He knows just about everything there is to know, and mostly I just follow along behind him with my face shoved entirely too close to my iPhone, producing my ID when he tells me to. Traveling alone is a completely different animal.

Once I got to the freezing cold state of Ohio, the few days I spent there passed like a blur. The kids are so big now, and I got to meet the youngest two for the first time. It was a 3-day gab fest. That first night, we stayed up until 3:48. Ouch! I had such a great time, and I'm hoping to convince my lovely friend that the next turn is indeed hers. At least I have warm weather & beach to further my cause! :)

Within 5 minutes of being in 34-degree weather, my face felt completely numb. My official tolerance time for cold is 7 minutes. I now refer to Ohio as "frozen, God-forsaken tundra." I can't imagine how I would have survived had it actually snowed.

Even after staying up till nearly 4am, how can you resist this face the next morning??? Lauren is 3 mos. old. A shiny new human! 

She is literally the happiest baby on the planet. 

Cutie! 

Ashley is three. She loves to sing songs and read books! And yes, it's true. No matter what type of person you are, when a three-year-old hands you a toy phone, you say hello.

Sisters! 

Jason is six. He was not prepared for a photo op at this exact moment because he was playing a game. He's quite a little gentleman.

My feeble attempt at playing with action figures, and a few snapshots of the kids.

We toured the Anthony Thomas Chocolate Factory. It was incredibly fun, although I'm not sure how wise it was of me to hang out in a building with thousands of tons of chocolate on hand. :) 

A 235-lb buckeye. Who in the world would pay $3500 for this thing!!! 

f

Joanna and me. I'm not sure what happened here but I look insanely awkward. At least she looks great. She looks way to good to have a three-month old! 

Lauren and mommy! 

Cream Puff Cake

Recently, I took a jetrocket-quick trip over to Ohio to visit a friend. While I was there, she made a delightful cream puff cake. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think you should all make it. :-) It was light, creamy, easy, and it utilizes vanilla pudding which might by one of my favorite things ever.

I didn't used to know anyone who is so organized that all of their recipes are typed, laminated, and organized in a binder, but now I do. I mean check this out. Ha! Please keep in mind that the recipe pictured is for CREAM PUFFS and we made a CREAM PUFF CAKE. So don't be confused. :-)

Cream Puff Cake

1 cup hot water 

1/2 cup butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup flour

4 eggs

Filling 

1 small pkg instant vanilla pudding

1-3/4 c milk

1/2 tub cool whip

Mix together the pudding mix and milk, and refrigerate until it sets. Fold in the cool whip. 

(You may use the entire tub if you want, but we used the "other half" right on top.)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In a small pot, bring water, butter, & salt to a full, rolling boil, then add the flour all at once and stir quickly to form the mix into a ball. 

Now, dump your perfect little dough ball into a mixing bowl. Duh.

Now, beat in the eggs with a hand mixer,  one at a time.

Spread the dough out into a 9x13" pan. Be quick about it. Don't overthink it or overstir it, like I tried to. It's a warm, clumpy mess, and you're going to feel like you've done something wrong. Don't be afraid. It will be okay. Pop this little sugar in the oven for 15 minutes, then lower the temp to 350 and continue baking it for 25 minutes. You will be tempted to take it out early, because it smells really fragrant. Don't do it. Seriously, it needs the entire 40 minutes to bake. 

Once it's all baked up, let it cool completely. Now, you're ready to top it. 

Now hopefully you were smart and mixed your pudding in that ginormous, yawning 40-minute time gap, but if not, you're just gonna have to wait a little longer. 

Dump out the remaining half tub of cool whip, and spread it out.

Isn't everything better with a drizzle of chocolate????

Eat me. I'm yummy.

Old-Fashioned Pot Roast

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm not particularly a fan of red meat. I prefer poultry. When I say, "not a fan," understand that I mean that I can barely touch or cook the stuff without triggering my gag reflex. It just smells and looks horrid when it's raw. However, a couple of weeks my husband had a manly meltdown and begged me to cook red meat. So I did (three times, actually) because I felt horrible for unwittingly making him slightly miserable. :-) There must have been something to his desperate cries for red meat, because even our pets circled the kitchen like hungry vultures. Weird. :-) 

I know this will come as a shock, but there was actually a time when Pot Roast was cooked.....in a pot! Haha. It seems like nowadays the only recipes to be found are crock pot recipes. I did some reading on roast, and even made a special trip to a store to buy a special cut of meat (chuck roast), and also devoted my entire afternoon to making said roast. I also decided to make this roast with assorted root vegetables instead of carrots and potatoes. That was interesting. Not bad, just different. ;-)

You will need:  chuck roast, onions, carrots, rutabaga, turnips, parsnip, kosher salt, pepper, beef stock, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary (if you have it; if not, dried is fine). If you already know that you hate "assorted root veggies," go ahead and use potatoes and carrots.

Wash and drain your root veggies.

Get your roast ready to go--unwrap it and put it on a plate (I always use paper!) near the stove. Add generous amounts of kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper. LOTS! You're seasoning a lot of meat and you've gotta make sure it will taste good. 

Next: cut the onions in half from root to tip, peel 'em, and then slice off the "icky part" on top and bottom. Cut the other veggies into large chunks. Heat about 4 tbsp of olive oil in a dutch oven, and cook the onions for 1 minute on each side. Add your other root veggies next. You may need to do this in batches, because the veggies all need space and time to get their outsides delightfully caramelized. As the veggies cook, sprinkle them LIGHTLY with salt & pepper. Once all the veggies have been browned,  set them aside. *Note: do not peel the carrots/parsnip etc. Also keep in mind you are not trying to COOK them, just get a nice color and flavor going on the outside.

Add some fresh olive oil (you can wipe out the pot in between veggies and meat if you are totally neurotic), and sear the meat about 2 minutes per side until a beautiful, golden-brown crust forms. Now--remove the meat from the dutch oven and, with your burner on medium-high, deglaze the pot with about 1-1/2 cups of beef stock. Use a nice, strong wooden spoon that won't break--and scrape off every bit of "brown stuff" from the bottom of the pot. That stuff will add amazing flavor to your dish. Toss in a couple shakes of Worcestershire sauce if you're feeling it. Or not. I have a feeling it wouldn't really matter to much. :-)

Now, I'm a freak and I removed the liquid into a measuring cup, then place my meat and veggies "just so" in the Dutch oven. I sprinkled some rosemary and thyme on, too. About a teaspoon of each. Delightful. 

I then poured the liquid back on top, added an extra cup of stock (2-1/2 cups total liquid), put the lid on, and put this into my pre-heated oven @ 275 degrees. Plan on a minimum of 3-1/2 hours of cook time for a 3-lb roast. Add an extra hour for each additional pound of meat. Don't touch it, talk to it, look at it,  or even so much as open the oven. Go do your thing. Dance. Clean. Whatever. Just don't touch the oven for at least 3-1/2 hours. 

Your patience will eventually be rewarded, and you can remove your pot roast to a serving platter and sweetly nestle the root vegetables around it for a great photo. If you like, go ahead and run the liquid through a fine strainer, and make some gravy. A couple of tablespoons of corn starch dissolved in cold water and added to the liquid will be magical. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat to low and stir for a few minutes, until the liquid thickens enough to be called gravy. Add browning or whatever if you're fancy. I'm not. It won't change the taste, but it will make you feel fantastic. 

Carve into 1-1/2" slices and serve with root vegetables. If you cooked it long enough, when you start to cut it up, it will sorta "shred" because it should be pretty tender. Delish.