Foodie Friday- Stuffed Green Peppers

We rarely use ground beef in recipes. Actually, we haven’t used ground beef in 5 years. No joke. We either use Italian sausage or ground turkey. It was all part of a “diet” one year and we just decided we couldn’t taste a difference and it was healthier. So why not make the change permanent?

We often prefer Italian sausage but it is a little more unhealthier for you. But some recipes just need the extra calories…er flavor (ground turkey seems to need twice the flavoring as it doesn’t hold the taste as well). The stuffed pepper recipe is one that requires the extra flavor in my opinion. Also I was searching for another recipe that could utilize the sausage I had in the freezer. This was the perfect fit as I also had the rice too. I only needed to buy fresh green peppers and tomato sauce. All the spices were already in my cabinet! I love when I can use what I have, especially because we budget each paycheck.

Ingredients
4 green bell peppers
1 pound/package of Italian sausage
1/2 cup if rice
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Salt
Pepper
Worcestershire
2 cans tomato sauce (16oz)

Preheat oven to 350. Cook rice. Cook sausage in separate pan. Cut off tops and de-seed peppers. If needed, cut off the bottoms to level out. Arrange peppers in a baking dish hollow sides up. In a bowl mix the sausage, rice, 1 can tomato sauce, Worcestershire, onion and garlic powder, salt and pepper. Then spoon mixture into peppers. In a bowl mix the remaining can of tomato sauce and season as needed. Spoon sauce mixture over peppers. Cover with tin foil and bake for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday – Baked Opah with Lemon Dill Butter

I’m am not a cook, chef, baker or any sort of kitchenteer. So when I make a meal from scratch with no recipe that is editable and tasty; I’ve got to share!

We currently live in paradise and I’m trying hard to embrace it while we still live here. Which means embracing the local cuisine. I started picking up random local foods at the grocery store to try at home. Which made it a little complicated cooking it since sometimes I didn’t even know what I had picked up!

Case in point- Two weeks ago I picked up some local fish at the store. I had never heard of the fish and had no idea how to prepare it and had never cooked fish in my life (wait…does fish sticks count?). Even more, Hubs hates fish. He hates that fishy taste. He is your typical chicken, steak and potatoes kind of guy. So I was also pretty sure no matter how magnificent I could make that fish taste, just the fact it was fish, he wouldn’t like it (even if I could convince him to taste it). But I’m not your steak and potatoes kind of girl. I love trying new foods and am so tired of grilled chicken. I will barf next time we have it.

I bring home the fish. Now what? I have to find out what kind of fish it even is. I discovered Opah or Moonfish, is a mild buttery white fish. Ok, so I figured out what I bought. So how do I cook it? No idea! Google did not yield much. My other go to is allrecipes which had none! I started to panic a little. But I had to pull it all together because he can smell fear and if Hubs smelled fear, I knew he would be afraid to try the fish. So I quickly adapted and overcame.

Here is a quick and SUPER EASY recipe to bake Opah-

1/2 cup white cooking wine

rosemary

Italian Seasoning

salt

mixed pepper

2 tablespoons lemon juice

extra virgin olive oil

2 whole lemons

Preheat oven to 210 degrees. You want to bake fish longer at a lower temperature to avoid drying it out. I first take the fish steaks and rub them down with the olive oil. I then sprinkle salt and pepper on them. Next, I mix the cooking wine, salt, pepper, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, Italian seasoning and rosemary (sorry, I didn’t measure some). Mixed it in a bowl and used a rubber basting brush and brushed it on.

Next, I heated up a frying pan on medium heat. Once hot, I then seared the fish steak. I had no idea how to sear, so I had to look it up.

(Here is a quick how-to sear)

Lastly, I cut up the whole lemons. I layer one on the bottom and add a few shakes of the salt and pepper. Then place my fish steaks and finally cut up and layer the other lemon on the top of the fish. I bake it at 210 degrees until the fish flakes easily; probably about 20 min. The great thing about this fish is we eat it a lot here being rare or only seared. So you really cant go wrong with not cooking it long enough. Just watch that it doesn’t get to dry.

As for the lemon dill butter-

lemon juice

butter

dill

Melt the butter, mix in the lemon juice and dill. Bam. Baste it over the fish once you have plated. Hubs doesn’t even use the butter sauce, but I love it all!

 

Foodie Friday

Foodie Friday- Chicken Crescent Bake

This recipe has been passed from my step mom to John. Hehe, my parents learned quick my husband (then boyfriend) had a very small food repitwar. He was usually scared when he came for dinner. But this recipe was one that won him over. So they taught us how to cook it. It is very easy, requires simple easy to find ingredients and makes lots of left overs. This is one of those recipes that its so simple you can recall all the ingredients for a quick meal planning at the grocery store.

Chicken Crescent Bake
16oz canned chicken (it used to be 12oz but I hated throwing away chicken)
Two rolls of crescent rolls (I used reduce fat)
1 can cream if chicken
1 12oz box of frozen chopped broccoli (I have found this hard to find so I normal find what ever already cut up frozen broccoli I can find. Ie florets or strems)
1 brick of cream cheese (I use reduce fat)
1 can of chopped black olives (I’m taking the teeny cans)
1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper for taste

Place frozen broccoli in a microwave safe bowl. Add a little water to help steam the broccoli. In a separate bowl place the cream cheese. Once the broccoli is heated,discard the water, and pour the hot broccoli over the cream cheese. It helps with mixing them together as the hot broccoli will help soften the cream cheese.

Mix broccoli/cream cheese mix with olives, soup, and chicken. Add in the salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the oven to directions on crescent roll packaging. Next open up rolls and cut in half. If you look close you will see a perforated line to “snap” the rolls in half. Be careful because they will naturally want to rip off into triangles.

Spread out roll long ways on a cookie sheet. The rolls will make two loafs. Carefully strech out roll doughs a little on the cookie sheet. Once done start spooning mixture onto rolls. Make sure to leave a edge around. You will be placing the top on soon and will need to press the edges together to create a calzone like product.

Sprinkle cheddar cheese on the top of the mixture. Don’t forget the ends! As a mom I am the one normally eating the ends (don’t you all fight for the middle brownie?!) and I get mad when I end up with no cheese.

Finally open up the other crescent rolls. Again “snap” it in half. Now you are going to gently stretch the dough over the logs if mixture and cheese. The goal is to not rip the dough while you make it wide and long enough to drape over the logs to where you can crimp the edges with a fork.

Soda Cake

A long time ago my husband went to bake me a cake. He called me asking if he add to use eggs. Eggs? Yes. I explained to him how eggs are in most of what he eats from bread to cookies. Reluctantly added eggs into the cake mix.

The next year the same question- “do I have to use eggs?” Surprisingly this year he had a different answer. Being the sweet amazing man he is; he broke down and called my friend. She was great and helpful and gave him a cake recipe that didn’t include eggs. So follows is the recipe he used every year to make cakes. Read slowly or you’ll miss it!

Soda Cake
1 box cake mix
1 can soda

Tada! No, really, I’m not kidding. You can basically mix any cake and any flavor soda. The rule we normally follow is match the color. So strawberry cake he uses Code Red Mountain Dew. Chocolate cake gets Dr. Pepper or Coke. White cake gets Spite. But the combination is up to you.

Salmon Fillets from Costco

Even though this is not my personal recipe, it is a great pre-made ready to eat in 20 minute one I had to share. Hubs is no fish guy. He is your typical chicken, steak and potatoes type. However, I can get him to eat this. It is amazing, and available from Costco. A normal membership is $50 a year, but like Sam’s, they have just about everything you need here. With three kids my favorite buy? A 40 pack of AA batteries for $13.