Making Stuff: A tasy take on stuffed peppers

 David and I have been using our new found time together at home to revisit our love for cooking. One thing we both have liked in our adulthood are stuffed peppers. One night, I wanted to use up things we had in our pantry and discovered that we may be able to make stuffed peppers. David made a run to the store and found these beautiful peppers while I surfed the internet to find a recipe. What I found were several recipes that didn't quite add up to the contents of my pantry, so David and I decided this was an opportunity to put what we know about cooking and about what mixes well together, and we created our own recipe. It was very tasty, so I decided I wanted to be sure to get it in writing for future use.

If you try this and like it, let us know. If you try a new take on it, let us know. If you didn't like it, let us know. . . Just let us know!

Note: You'll notice that this recipe doesn't use the full cans - if you would prefer, double everything and freeze two of the peppers for later!

Couscous and Tomato Stuffed Green Peppers for two

Ingredients:

8 oz. ground beef (or sausage would be good, too)

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 T. minced onion

1/2 can diced tomatoes, drained

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

1 T. tomato paste

1 c. tomato sauce

2 large green peppers

1/4 c. dried pearl couscous

1 c. sharp white cheddar (rustic cut)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Wash the peppers. Cut the tops off the green peppers, remove the stems and seeds. Dice the remaining part of the tops. 

3. Spray an oven safe dish with olive oil. Place the bottom of the peppers open side up in the dish, then spray with olive oil. Place the dish in the preheated oven to lightly roast the peppers for about 10 minutes. You don't want to cook them completely, as they will continue the cooking process once you have stuffed them.

4. While the peppers are pre-roasting, brown the ground beef in a skillet on medium-high heat with the onions. Drain if you didn't use lean meat.

5. Add the garlic, diced peppers, tomato paste, tomatoes, italian seasoning, salt/pepper, and tomato sauce and simmer on low, stirring occasionally.

6. Prepare the couscous according to package directions.

7. Once the peppers have finished, let them cool while you add the couscous and 1/2 of the cheese to the meat mixture and continue to simmer on low, stirring occasionally.

8. Stuff the peppers with the meat mixture, then top with remaining cheese.

9. Bake, uncovered in oven for 25 minutes or until cheese is melted.  

Hi I'm privileged, and you might be, too

Priv-i-lege

1. a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

It doesn't have anything to do with how much money you have. It doesn't have to do with how many struggles you have endured in your life. It isn't your fault, personally, that you have privilege, but it is your fault if you don't do something about it.

I was born in a lower middle-class, white home in middle USA in 1965. My father became disabled early in my remembered life. My mom was a nurse. We quickly moved from lower middle class to poor, but we never realized it. My parents raised us all to understand that riches were measured by relationships and that education was the only possession that could not be taken away from us. 

It seemed fun and daring when my sister and I climbed into the dumpster behind a floral shop to gather a bouquet for our mom for Mother's Day and it was a teary-eyed mama who accepted it, and reveled in the storytelling of our adventure. It didn't feel like poverty.

I didn't begin to understand any semblance of what poverty was like until I was an adult. Even then, I know I didn't have it as bad as others. Using my money to buy dog food and baby formula because these creatures who depended on me didn't deserve to not eat. Having friends invite us over for dinner every other day because they knew that was the only time we ate. I sometimes actually miss the feeling of a cold shower in the dark, when both electric and gas had been shut off. I will turn off the light in my bathroom and only turn on the cold - shaking myself back into remembrance of how good my life is. Experiencing my miscarriage all alone, with no phone, driving through a tornado warning to make a phone call to my mama, crying. Driving a car with a cracked head, water in the radiator that looked like frothy chocolate milk, no radio, and a passenger side door that wouldn't quite latch. But I had transportation. I had a mama. I had love. 

No matter how many struggles I have gone through in life, I never once walked down the street knowing that I might get arrested at any moment because of the color of my skin. I never once had to have a conversation with my sons about how to act when they are approached by a police officer, for fear they might get killed. I never once had to send my husband off to work, wondering if this could be the day he might speed a little too much, or have a broken taillight, get pulled over, and I might never see him again.

My white privilege is not something to feel defensive about, when people point it out to me. It is something to own and use for good.

I am privileged. 

With that privilege, which I have only because of chance, I have a responsibility to be a part of the change. I love my brothers and sisters in this world, all of them - white, black, brown, young, old, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gay, agreeing with my opinions or disagreeing with my opinions - every single human being on Earth has a RIGHT to live their lives in peace, with the people they love.

I stand with those who do not share the luxury of privilege and dream of a day when all of my brothers and sisters are truly equal.

Family Recipe: Ham and Cream Gravy

Growing up, there were a handful of family favorites that would be requested over and over. Some of them, like liver and onions, made me groan at every mention. Needless to say, you'll never see a blog post from me about trying a liver and onion recipe. The mention of others was truly comforting. My mama's ham gravy, and sometimes sausage if she wasn't feeling like it was a ham day, was something everyone loved. We never had this for breakfast, although in retrospect, it would have been perfect for it. Instead, it was a hearty supper on the days my mom would make biscuits and ham gravy!

When I was looking through her recipe box, I was actually surprised to find a recipe for it. I had assumed it was one of those things that she just had in her head (I've encountered quite a few of those in my adult life as I tried to get her to share her recipes for things like borscht and stuffing). This made the card a find, but as I read through it, I realized it was a very big find.

After the recipe, there an extra note that my mom wrote:

"I use whole milk (not 1%, 2%, or fat free). It is even better if you replace a cup of milk with a cup of cream. (When we lived on the farm, mom replaced most of the milk with cream)."

This one paragraph meant that it was not only a family favorite for my family, it had been a family favorite for my mom's family (and I would guess that probably was not the end of that story). Also, "the farm" was my mother's favorite place of all time. Her demeanor and even the sound of her voice changes whenever she starts talking about the place where her family lived through the Depression. While others were struggling to survive they had fresh eggs and milk with cream and even animals to butcher. There are so many treasured memories there that her sister even commissioned an artist to paint the house from an old black and white photograph, complete with barking dog on the front steps.

When I made this recipe, I decided to go the whole mile and use the cream. This was not something my mother did, or if she did, she didn't do it very often. The full cream made the meal even heartier, and super tasty. However, I think I would prefer to do half cream and half milk. We chopped up a ham I had gotten on discount, where I know my mom used to just use thin slices of deli ham.

For the biscuits, I used Mary B's Buttermilk Biscuits - these frozen biscuits cook up like homemade. David and I learned about them while on a weekend getaway where the property owner left biscuits in the freezer and homemade peach jam in the fridge for her guests. The mix of homemade(ish) biscuits and thick, creamy gravy were a delight. Because of the weight of the meal, one batch fed six of us.

I'm not going to post the nutrition information - in part because it really depends on a lot of factors. But the other reason is - this just isn't the kind of recipe that you really want to know the nutrition information for! Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 T. butter
2 c. chopped ham (12 oz.)
3 T. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper (next time I'm adding more pepper to make it a peppered gravy)
2 1/4 c. milk

Instructions:

1. In a medium saucepan, melt butter. Add ham and cook over medium heat until ham is light brown.
2. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Add milk all at once. (Note: we shook these ingredients together and added them - I'm pretty sure that's what Mom did, too).
3. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Cook and stir for one minute more.

Makes 3 1/4 cups.

Family Recipe: Baked Cheese and Hominy Loaf

One of the family favorites I remember when I was a kid was my mom's baked hominy casserole. I loved hominy, and this cheesy combination with green peppers and onions was like the epitome of comfort food. Unfortunately, when I was in high school, I had some hominy casserole in the midst of one of the most terrible illnesses I had experience, and I forever associated hominy casserole with a terrible headache after that.

Last week, when I was looking through Mom's recipe box, I came across her much-used recipe for hominy casserole and decided it was time for me to get over my long rest from this tasty meal! Of course, when I mentioned it to David, it did not have the requisite "something-must-have-died" component, so we decided to try it with diced ham - it just sounded like it should match up well with hominy and cheese.

This recipe is a great option, though, for vegetarians (not vegans, I guess, because it has milk and cheese, although you could easily substitute). It is hearty without meat - totally worthy of being a main dish or it can be used as a potluck-style side dish.

It is super easy to make. It has some strange ingredients - scalded milk? We read up on scalded milk in recipes and apparently, this was an ingredient that was a reflection of a time when milk was not pasteurized - scalding the milk before using it destroyed the bacteria that resided in fresh milk. It also called for 1 tablespoon of green pepper - that is not much green pepper!

The concoction is combined, then cooked slowly in a 275 degree oven for an hour. I would not suggest changing this - the time slow-cooking it gives time for all of the ingredients to really mesh together.

For our attempt, we used one small green pepper and one green onion. We also added a package of diced ham.

The verdict? It was super tasty! David thought that it was a little bland, so if you are a person who needs more seasoning, you may want to experiment a little. Still, it was a nice blast from my past!

Ingredients (as we made it):

1 c. milk
1 c. bread crumbs
1 c. grated cheese
2 eggs, beaten
2 cans hominy
1 small green pepper, diced
1 large green onion, sliced
8 oz. cubed ham
salt & pepper to taste

In a large bowl, combine milk, bread crumbs, and cheese. Add remaining ingredients in the order they are listed. Put in a greased casserole dish in a 275 degree oven for one hour.

Family Recipe: Chicken on a Sunday

This week, the recipe I chose to try out from my mother's recipe box is Chicken on a Sunday. The name of the recipe is what caught my eye first. The thing that cinched it was when I saw the small note in the top right of the card "good-best" and an X on the upper left side. You see, there were about five recipes with the same title. Some said "good", others said "good-better." This told me that my mom was on a search for the best Chicken on a Sunday recipe, and when she found it, she wanted to be sure to remember which one she liked!

Chicken on a Sunday originated as a way for busy moms to ensure that their family had a hot meal ready for them when the family returned home from church. It's a super simple recipe that only uses a few ingredients (I had all of them in my pantry).

Mom's recipe called for cooking in a baking pan in the over at 250 degrees for 2 1/2 to 3 hours "During S.S. and church." I decided to change it up a bit - I cooked mine on high in the crock pot for about 3 hours. I also used chicken thighs instead of a full frying chicken cut into pieces (I still have no idea how to cut up a chicken).

The result? It was super tasty! The chicken was very tender. The only thing I would change (and I'm changing it in the recipe below) would be to put the chicken in the crockpot first, THEN the rice. When I did it the way it was supposed to be layered in the baking pan, i found some of the rice had not cooked after the time was up, so I had to stir everything up and let it continue to cook until the rice had cooked. Other than that, the transition from oven to crockpot was a breeze!

INGREDIENTS

1 c. milk
1 c. rice (uncooked)
6 chicken thighs (recipe calls for 1 frying chicken cut in pieces)
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup

1. Sprinkle raw rice on bottom of baking dish (if using crockpot, you'll want to put the rice on top of the chicken).
2. Put chicken pieces on rice (again, place this first if using a crockpot)
3. Sprinkle dry onion soup mix over chicken.
4. Mix mushroom and celery soup with milk, then pour over chicken.
5. Cover with foil and bake in 250 degree oven 2 1/2 to 3 hours (or in a crockpot on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours).

The recipe gives you your protein and carbs - you'll want to serve with a vegetable on the side.

Note: Nutrition facts assume the use of chicken thighs rather than a frying chicken.

Family Recipe: Pork Chops in Celery Cream Gravy

I've been sorting through boxes and boxes of recipes that I got from my mom. She had recipe boxes full of recipes in her handwriting, her mother's handwriting, and from my grandmother on my dad's side (who typed all of her recipes). There are recipes that mean nothing to me - clearly never made, only written on cards in my mother's neat handwriting. Recipes that she intended to make someday, but never did. There are recipes I remember well - family favorites that I already know how to make and others I never did. There are recipes that she notated the name of the person who gave her the recipe in the corner of the card, which makes that one mean more because clearly she did taste that one and liked it enough to get the recipe. Then there are those that are dark from food stains and age, bent and smeared from sitting on a kitchen counter while ingredients were measured, beaten, poured, and mixed.

Once I sorted out the ones that my mother never had, I decided that I was going to start trying to make some of the recipes that I was unfamiliar with, so that I could learn more about my family through the foods they ate. My mom is still with us, but she can't cook anymore, my grandmothers are long gone. Doing this makes me feel somehow connected to all of the strong women in my family.

So here is my first attempt! Pork Chops with Celery Cream Gravy. I chose this one because it was the one that my husband sounded interested in when I read the choices off - this could be due to the fact that we discovered a package of pork chops in our freezer when we did a quarantine food inventory.

Anyway, we thawed out the pork chops and found the rest of the ingredients in the pantry. The instructions were easy, the ingredients were things that we normally have in our pantry, and the family verdict: they loved it! Nathan said his favorite part was the "sopping" sauce - the celery cream gravy that the pork chops have been baked in. We used bone-in pork chops but they were cut thick like boneless normally are, so it was important to have the sauce to add moisture into the meat.

We served it with a side of broccoli, a salad mix of cucumbers and zucchini, and some yeast rolls we also found in the freezer. We will definitely add this to our collection of "tried and true"!

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

6 pork chops
salt and pepper
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 tsp. sage
3/4 c. milk
1 can cream of celery soup

1. Trim most of fat from chops and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.
2. Rub skillet with fat (instead, I drizzled olive oil in the pan) and brown chops on both sides. Remove from pan and place in baking dish (I sprayed the baking dish with olive oil).
3. In the skillet, cook the onions in drippings (the fancy word is fond) until tender.
4. Stir in sage, soup, and milk, mixing to loosen all browned particles (a/k/a fond!) from skillet.
5. Pour mixture over chops and bake in 350 degree oven about 1 hour until chops are tender.

After the fact bucket list

On Monday, I did something I never thought I would do. It wasn't something that was even ever on a list of things I wish I had done. I did a stand-up routine at a local theater.

Now that I've done my first stand-up comedy, I am adding it to my bucket list (so that I can check it off!). There are some things I learned.

1. Not every audience is going to connect with the material you have. A seasoned comic can change their path, but one that is doing this for the first time has to keep on trudging through.

2. Stand up comedy is super vulnerable. You walk up to that mic and you are putting all your faith in that your audience will connect with what you are saying and find it funny. This is the most courageous thing I have ever done in my life.

3. I also realized that I have some funny things to say, but I don't know if I have enough to do stand up comedy. I'm thinking I could MC, where I have to say one or two funny things as I'm introducing the next act. However, because of the second sentence in number 1, I do think I could move into stand-up if I had enough material.

4. An act of courage can be inspiring to others. I have received several emails and messages from people who have felt empowered by my courage to get up there and try stand-up. We'll see whether all of these people actually do the things they say they feel empowered to do.

All in all, I'm very happy that I found my courage to do this. Let me tell you, it really took a lot - my introverted self would normally have backed out of this, but I purposefully told people I was doing this so that I couldn't back out.

My message in all of this? Don't let your own personal fears keep you from giving your dreams a try. The worst case scenario is that you completely bomb and nobody remembers you.