Slow Cooker Stuffed Bell Peppers

Pepper Stuffed W/ Sausage, Onions, Tomatoes, Rice & Cheese

So, after my onion goggle fiasco and my hour of rest watching the end of the movie Paul while I recovered from the one glass of sangria I had at brunch at Cafe 21, I finished prepping the peppers, using a recipe from Cook’s Country that you can find written out by another blogger here (thanks, Brenda!).

Colin and I sat and read for 4.5 hours while they slowly condensed into themselves, allowing the sausage juices to seep deeper into the starchy rice, tomatoes and onions, while swimming in a rich pool of tomato stew.

We pulled the peppers from the pot, and with our first bites, we grinned with sinful enthusiasm at the mouthwatering sausage flavor that seemed to have snuck into every bite.

I used the leftover bell pepper tomato sauce on a pizza later that week. It offered the typical cheese pizza a little more life.

The Shells

The Plated pepper

 Red Pepper Tomato Sauce Pizza

Cafe 21 in University Heights

Banana Walnut Pancakes Dusted with Powdered Sugar

My New Year’s resolution is to be a better planner. It reduces stress and anxiety.

Last Sunday, before we left the house for brunch at Cafe 21 in University Heights, I decided to prep the ingredients for the dinner I was planning to make. I chopped onions.

Being that my eyes are over-the-top sensitive and I cry enough in front of my very nice boyfriend, not long ago I invested in goggles to spare him and myself any pain while cutting onions. I’m quite the deal-getter and paid only 5 bucks for “swim” goggles instead of $20 real onion goggles. Smart, huh?

No. Why? Because swim goggles provide added pressure to keep water out.

(Right. I know this now). On Sunday, when I finished chopping, I took a deep breath of pride for having planned so well, let down my hair, gently removed the goggles with 5 minutes to spare before brunch, and looked in the mirror. Horror. Multiple thick wound-like red goggle marks around my eyes.  I could do nothing. I threw on my radiator sunglasses and headed out the door to meet Colin’s friends (who were kind enough to understand my misfortune). It turned out to be a magical brunch.

We sat and chatted for two hours, lapping up warm maple walnut banana pancakes with just the right amount of “sweet” and a hot cast-iron pan of a perfectly cooked shrimp layered in an omelet stuffed with bright basil leaves, mozzarella and feta cheese. I walked (almost stumbled) out of Cafe 21 with a lightness in my step due to the…I’ll call it “boldness”… of the white melon sangria…my red marks were gone by then.

At least dinner was easy to make.

Cool White Pineapple Melon Sangria

Mozzarella, Tomato, Spinach, Pesto and Feta Shrimp Omelete

Homemade Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

I told you that I had a hankering to do more home cooking. To help move this along, I thrashed through a basket of old food magazines and ripped out all the recipes that I could envision myself making. I compiled them into a binder and now have all the best pages of the magazines–that means NO goat cheese, NO lamb, and…NO super long difficult recipes that would cause a kitchen breakdown due to stress.

This last weekend, I made tomato soup from a recipe in Cooks Country Magazine (February/March 2011). The secret ingredient? Baking Soda. It cuts the tang of the canned tomatoes, adding a light freshness. I couldn’t find the recipe on the Cook’s Country website, but–as luck would have it–a nice lady named Hope blogged about it not long ago and wrote the recipe into her Classic Tomato Soup post.*

*Always check for redundancy before you go ahead and do something. Hope saved me several minutes that I can now spend with my precious new Kindle (thanks, Dad). By the way, you might benefit from knowing about Instapaper–you can save articles from the web that you can read on your Kindle!

Anyhow, aside from the Kindle, you should also know that a simple cheddar grilled cheese sandwich pairs well with this soup, while playing up a bit of nostalgia, of course.

Maple Glazed Acorn Squash and Macaroni and Cheese

I baked this acorn squash recipe that I originally found in Cook’s Country Magazine from Feb/March 2011 in an attempt to rekindle my once-found love of cooking in my house. The waft of rich maple syrup spiked with heat from a dash of cayenne pepper was a good start. I’m on my way to a new year of more in-house meals.

On New Year’s Eve, prior to our going out to see the film Young Adult starring Charlize Theron, whose droll humor kept me feeling both amused and pleasantly uncomfortable, I threw together a pot of homemade macaroni and cheese topped with buttery panko crumbs. Unfortunately, Colin and I could only bring ourselves to eat what might be deemed a “bite” of it. Although magnificent, thinking about the butter and cheese melted and piled into the dish at a time when we were supposed to be making resolutions was enough to keep us focused on our raspberry spinach salad topped with crushed pistachios, sliced radishes, and a homemade vinaigrette. As for the rest of the mac’n cheese? I doled it out at a family gathering the next day and sent some home with grandpa. Family is required to always love the food I make, so I knew they had no way out of that one.

Magruder Ranch is Everyone’s Home

A few weeks ago I visited Magruder Ranch. You can find them on Facebook here.

My visit entailed moving an irrigation system to cover another part of the grass that would feed the cows (they are grassfed), digging hundreds of pounds of dirt and tossing it into a tractor (there was a reason), and lazily floating down the Russian River on inner tubes (mine was popped of course, so I lazily sank, rather than floated, many times), picking wild blackberries growing along the bank all the while.

The ranch offers a place to re-center–to feel like yourself again. With thousands of acres of nature in every corner of the world from where you stand, you can’t help but feel appreciation for your life.

Also, they fed me grassfed burgers for lunch, homemade kombucha tea and a succulent roast that melted into the wine reduction poured atop it. Lemon cucumbers, nostalgic conversation and gin and tonics with lime nestled into glasses stained with pictures of giraffes thwarted any stress that I brought with me that weekend. To Grace, Ben, Mac and Martha, you’ve built a home where we all belong.

[Mac drives this with the dogs perched on back on the way to herd the cattle]

[This cat enjoyed melon. They discovered this one day when they came home to the cat having torn one apart.]

[Everywhere you can see is the ranch. Grace and Ben got married here. Happy family. Happy cows, pigs and sheep.]

[This is the Brut that Grace and Ben served at their wedding. Local, from a friend.]

[Delicious grassfed steak with wine reduction sauce]

[These sunflowers are only a few feet hight. My friend Emi is just really small.]

[Pig kisses. Did you know that the county policy won't allow their cows to be considered organic because they feed the pigs non-organic corn? Everything else about the cows is organic--but they can't sell it as such. That's okay because they run a good shop, but let's change things.]

[remarkably warm ambiance]

From September 28, 2011

Our Trip to Mexico: Cancun’s Isla Mujeres

Shrimp Quesadilla with Oaxaca Cheese

So Colin and I flew down to Cancun, Mexico and traveled by ferry to Isla Mujeres. One of his best friends got married, and a good 20 to 40 (it was open bar, so…that’s what you get from me) folks were there to witness the big day.

You must be pretty important to get friends to fly out for a weekend to another country, take a cab to the port, catch a ferry and cab it to the hotel. Then again, maybe not. The water was crystal blue, and I have the image stained in my mind of a fading pink sky with burnt orange dimming in the background. No picture to prove it—but what does it matter anyhow? I’m trustworthy…

Alas, here are some pics of the food and one pic of a drink…With the little alcohol found in this daquiri (as good as it may have been), we wandered down the road to another joint where we found good-mannered mojitos and…we can’t really remember.

Chilequiles: Stir-fried chicken, chips and onions with spicy chile sauce and flaked cotija cheese melted with a steaming egg

Eggs benedict: poached egg with soft juicy chorizo that jumped with the extra kick of peppery spice in the hollaindaise

Enchiladas Suizas: Thick, swiss-like cheese with a crispy tortilla and drizzle of green tomatillo sauce

Breakfast Plate: Corn tortilla topped with egg, yellow pepper, cotija and accompanied by a housemade chicken tamal

Strawberry Daquiri

Welcome to the World, Easton!

So, my sister and brother-in-law welcomed Easton on Wednesday, after a long arduous task assigned to my sister (to get the little guy out). She is now recovering from a C-Section, and we’ve been spending our free hours in the hospital with the happy family. Thus, I have no blog for you this past or next week–unless you would be interested in seeing the rubbery chicken and bland pasta Micheal was served the other day? Well, too bad. I don’t take pictures of amateur food.

However, in lieu of my post, I am providing a pic of my nephew with me, the happy Aunt! Also, here are some pics of the jewelry my friend Sarah has put up on Etsy as I mentioned in my last post. I figured I should post some pretty things for you to look at. You can click through on the photos to see Sarah’s beautiful Etsy site entitled Dear Evelyn. Enjoy!

Uvarovite, from the ural mountains of russia, it is commonly called green garnet. Uvarovite is a lush green stone and is truly a one of a kind.

Cobalto Calcite. It is a pink druzy ( the inside of a geode), and is very rare as cobalto calcite is normally found in smaller pieces than this, which is 3 inches tall by 1 1/2 inches wide. Druzy has the appearance of sugar or fresh snow, and just shimmers... subtley changing color in the light.

Spirit Quartz gilded at the top only. This stone has subtle pops of purple and pale pink as spirit quartz is a type of amethyst. However, this stone is mainly white. The tip has the appearance of shimmer, and is uncoated in the druzy structure... the tip sparkles like a rainbow in the sun or shade. It is a true stunner, with just total sparkly sugar like druzy covering the beautiful, unique stone.

Look What I Can Do! Raspberry Lemon Basil Soda and Egg and Swiss Panini

Smashing Action

On Saturday, I confronted life with a homemade soda and an egg sandwich. The soda emerged from the combination of club soda and macerated basil and fruit, which included the independent, lightly sweet, bordering on seductive, raspberry instead of the always expected strawberry called for in this recipe.

This light spritzer signaled the sudden approach of summer and kicked off a night of study, motivated by Swiss cheese drooping over a piping hot onion-filled egg sandwich with chile verde sauce keeping it company.

The goal? Figure out the rest of my life. (Simple, right?)

Since graduating from Scripps College (where I met one of my best friends who happens to be selling some of her Dear Evelyn jewelry on Etsy) I’ve been trying to discover what “lights me up.”

The answer? People and food insecurity—not because I like these things (well, people, yes); but, rather, because I want to fix them.

Saturday Night: Effort 1

• Look into potential graduate schools for public policy
• Learn about the new and revised GRE and…
• Eat an egg sandwich accompanied by a complicated spritzer
  

  Raspberry, lemon, basil, brown sugar

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Raspberry Lemon Basil Soda

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upclose and personal

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Chile Verde Egg and Swiss Panini

Check out THIS Joint: Empire House in Hillcrest

[The sticky meat was tough to chew off the bone—but that only let the flavor of the miso linger, making the experience more like sucking a savory lollipop]

***

Empire House is like a friend you meet later in life who you connect with so well that you can bypass all the “getting to know one another” and just jump into a real conversation about who you are. It feels like home—Heck, it even looks a little like home. I went upstairs to use the restroom and felt like I was intruding on the dinner party in the private room—in a good welcoming sort of way of course!

Like the space, the food at Empire House is comforting and has fun personalities that you would only venture to tolerate with that new best friend you met in the last paragraph.

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[The TJ Style Hot Dog--wrapped in bacon and topped with cilantro slaw, garlic aioli, and red and greensauce]

[The Casters—choice of 3 burgers—pictured here]

• Zen burger with a marinated Japanese fern shoot (zenmai), havarti cheese, mayo and lettuce;
• BBQ Bacon Burger glazed with the house made red-miso bbq sauce which added a richness to the salty bacon, havarti cheese, garlic aioli, lettuce, and pickled red onion;
• Combo Burger with pulled pork on the beef patty and cilantro slaw, the red-miso adding a richness to the salty bacon and pungent aioli topping the burger.

[Simple fried tots served with Worcestershire ketchup and garlic aioli.]

Blind Lady Ale House (Blah–but in a good way)

prosciutto di Parma, olive oil, garlic, mozzarella and fontina

Blah is an acronym for Blind Lady Ale House. If you don’t get it by now, there’s really nothing I can do to help.

I’ve been to Blah a few times now. REMEMBER THIS if nothing else.

The line on the right side is JUST for beer. The line on the LEFT side is for both food AND beer. Both times I went, I waited in the wrong line for too long.

butternut squash pizza with a bechamel sauce, mushrooms, sage and other herbs

Also, you have to find your own seat after you order, and don’t be shy about sharing with others. Thus, you can imagine my situation on a Friday night at 7:00. My friend Aislinn and I found ourselves standing awkwardly in the corner hovering over another couple’s table. They were “saving” the seats. Whatever.

We ordered the butternut squash pizza–I think that’s off the menu now due to the seasonal change. Creamy bechamel with nutmeg, thick juicy sweet squash, sauteed mushrooms and the occasional fried sage leaf and other herbs that slipped their way onto the pizza.

hand-cut fried Kennebec potatoes w/mizo yuzu aioli, black olive and chili aioli, and curry catchup

The second time I went, my friend Myrna and I ordered the Belgian Frites. Funnily enough, “Frites” is the French word for what folks in the. U.S. call “French Fries.” I had to sneak in the order of these hand-cut Kennebec potatoes after we placed our pizza order after Myrna had initially declined splitting them. I’m pretty sure she was grateful for my obstinacy on the matter, as we stopped all conversation to graciously wolf down the curry catchup. It had just the “right touch” of sweetness to lift up the hints of cumin, turmeric, coriander, ginger and more. Oh it will be a happy day when that concoction is sold in the bottle.

slice of prosciutto white pizza

The Bianca al Prosciutto pizza, featured at the top and bottom of this page, was sour and creamy and would have been even better if I didn’t have to fight the meat to get a bite. Still–it was worth all the energy I put into it. I’m pretty sure that burns more calories while eating anyhow.