Philly CheeseSteak Stuffed Peppers & Getting Ahead

This is going to be a hectic week, lots of coming and going, and that is going to seriously impact my resolve to eat the things I need to.   There will be plenty of temptation to just stop and pick something up for dinner instead of eating what is here at home.  That is just the way it goes sometimes, and if that happens this week, it isn't the end of the world, but in an attempt to fend that off, my meal plan this week has several easy choices, and also some component parts that I made on the weekend. 

I get a lot of mileage out of the filling for this recipe, and in the end, you could easily just stuff more peppers and freeze them for later, or use the filling for taquitos, tacos, quesadillas, etc. (i also supposed you could just cut the filling ingredients in half, but if your going to cut and chop. . .why not make it count)  I had about 2 cups of the meat filling leftover for Taquitos later in the week, and I also set aside 2 more cups of just the veggies for a spaghetti squash bake as well.  

• 3-onions sliced
• 8 bell peppers, 2, sliced, 6 halved and de-seeded, whatever color you like, I used a combo pack of red, orange, & yellow
• 8oz-sliced mushrooms
• 1lb ground beef or turkey
• 2 cups cooked white or brown rice
• 6 slices pepper jack cheese
• 2 cup shredded cheddar cheese or cheese blend of your choice

Preheat oven to 400°

Whether or not you do this next step, is completely up to your tastes.  I put the peppers in the baking pan and I go ahead and just pop them in the oven, I like my peppers more cooked through, and not that crispy, so I like to start softening them up while I make the filling. 

In a skillet that will hold all the ingredients (save the halved peppers of course), add a tablespoon or so of olive oil and sauté the sliced onions, sliced peppers, and sliced mushrooms.  Add a touch of salt and pepper and cook them for about 6-8 minutes until softened and starting to brown.  Remove the vegetables to a bowl and set aside for a minute.

This is for spaghetti squash bake for
some lunches 

Place the skillet back on the heat, and start browning the meat, when you have browned the meat, drain off any fat.

Add the vegetables, rice, and 1 cup of the shredded cheese back into the skillet and stir to combine until the cheese has melted.

If you put the peppers in the oven, take them out now.  Place half a slice of the pepper jack cheese into the bottom of each pepper half, and then top and fill the pepper half with the meat & veggie filling.  Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese over the peppers. 

The original recipe calls for cooking the peppers in the oven for 15-20 minutes, but again my preference is for them to be a little softer, so I cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil, and bake in the oven for 30- 35 minutes.  Remove from oven, let them cool just a few minutes (the roof of your mouth and tongue will thank me) and enjoy.  

Aren't Bell Peppers Pretty?

Standing Taco Bake

We are on a little bit of a gluten-free kick.  After a hard winter with lots of illness, some back injury, and joint pain one thing we decided to try was a gluten free eating plan for a couple of months and see if that helps clear things up a little bit.   That being said, I still need some comfort food I my life, it is still cold after all. 

I have made these tacos for a long time and they have pretty much stayed the same since I found the original recipe in Cook’s Country a couple years ago.  You can count on a recipe from Cook’s Country, if you follow the recipe, it will turn out the way it is supposed to . . . that is kind of their thing.  I swap out the hamburger for Turkey, I figure once it is surrounded by taco seasoning and cheese, who can tell.  I also add some extras like olives before I add the final dose of cheese, there are some people in my house who think the world begins and ends with olives. 

As it happens so many times when I go to cook something, I was missing a couple of odds and ends.  In this case, I forgot to check the ingredients on the taco seasoning packet, and sure enough, there was flour in it.  I ended up using taco sauce and cumin to “season” the meat, and it worked out just fine.  I just thought I’d give you that piece of information, but you are probably a lot more organized than me.

1-10 oz can of Rotel drained, reserving ½ cup of the liquid

1-16 oz can of refried beans

1 Tbsp. Hot Sauce or Taco Sauce

¼ cup Cilantro

3-cups Shredded Cheese (cheddar or a Mexican blend)

1-lb Ground Turkey

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 packet Taco Seasoning

12-Corn Taco Shells

1-can sliced black olives (optional)

Garlic salt (optional)

3-green onions or scallions 

1. Preheat oven to 475°
   
2. Combine half of the Rotel, the refried beans, taco or hot sauce  and cilantro together in a bowl, and then spread it into the bottom of a 13 x 9in baking pan.  If you hate dishes like me, just mix it up in the pan and save yourself a bowl later.  Sprinkle with 1 cup of the cheese.
3. Cook the ground turkey and onion in a nonstick skillet, over medium heat until the turkey is browned and cooked through until all the pink is gone, give or take 7 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, then drain the meat if there is a lot of fat, I used a pretty lean turkey, so I just skipped this.  Add in the reserved tomato juice and tomatoes, and simmer for 5 minutes until it has thickened up.
   
4. Now comes the standing part, stand your taco shells up in the baking pan, gently pressing them in to the bean mixture in the bottom of the pan to help them stay upright. 
5.  Sprinkle a little bit of cheese in the bottom of each taco shell, then top with the meat mixture, and sprinkle on the black olives to your taste.  Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake for 10 minutes.  Take the pan out of the oven, remove the aluminum foil, and sprinkle on the rest of your cheese, and then if you want, give the dish a light sprinkling of garlic salt, mmmmm salty, melted cheese.    Put this back in the oven and back for 7-10 minutes until the cheese is melted and starting to get golden and crispy.
6. Remove from the oven, sprinkle on the green onions, and let this stand for about 5 minutes.  (This is a crucial step, this dish is absolutely volcanic and you will burn your mouth. . . believe me).    Serve with salsa and sour cream if you wish. 

Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Soup

There are times when one needs to clean up their act, to get back on track, and this is one of those times for me.  I have always struggled with my relationship to food, because, well, I love it, there are just times that I need to not love it quite so much.  Having said that, I’m not a diet person, I've learned through a five year effort to get healthy, that while a diet can be a great catalyst to get you going in the right direction, as a human being, I’m not going to stick with any kind of restrictive eating plan for the rest of my life.  I wish I was one of those people who viewed food solely as a fuel, and didn't care about the taste and joy of it, but I’m just not, so if I’m going to eat it, it needs to taste good.  So contrary to what you might think, when I’m going to clean it up, I get to cooking, and this is one of those recipes that I go to. 

It feels kind of fancy, Roasted Butternut & Sweet Potato Soup, and it turns out that when you roast and caramelize your veggies, you don’t need a lot of butter and cream to make them taste fantastic.  The floor plan for this recipe comes from Tara over at Undressed Skeleton, and I have made it her way many a time.  However one time I had a head of garlic and some sweet potatoes that needed to get used up or they were heading to the compost bin, so I cut them up and threw them in.  I was not disappointed.  I’m pretty sure you could throw carrots, celery, or any other root vegetable that is languishing in your vegetable bin and it would do nothing but make this better.  Look at me being healthy AND not wasting food. . . I’m doing good all-around today. 

This recipe is very easily vegan if you use Vegetable stock.  It is also gluten free!  I’m not a dietitian, so don’t hold my feet to the fire on this, but in case you wanted to know, when I calculate the soup I made on a recipe calculator, this came out to 59 Calories per Cup.  Oh!  My husband won’t touch this with a ten foot pole, my kids might sometimes, but only if I put some parmesan cheese on it and don’t tell them what it is. 

• 1 butternut squash
• 2 Sweet Potatoes
• 1 head garlic, tops cut off, cloves not separated
• 2 red onions
• 4-6 cups of Chicken or Vegetable Broth
• ½ tsp Sage
• ½ tsp Cayenne Pepper (optional)
• Salt & Pepper

1. Pre heat oven to  400 degrees. 
2. Cut the Squash, potatoes, & onions in half and put them on a rimmed baking sheet or baking pan, whatever will fit everything at once (cause I am not washing two baking pans).  Tuck the garlic in wherever you can make it fit.  You can drizzle lightly with olive oil (especially the garlic head) or lightly spray it with olive oil cooking spray and then salt and pepper this to your preference, keeping in mind that you will be adding broth to this later so watch out for the saltiness factor. 
3. I typically start out roasting this for about 40 minutes, depending on the size of your veggies, it might take longer.  Today, I put everything  back in the oven for another 20 minutes, after that I took out the potatoes, the onion and the garlic, because they were very done, but the squash was still not fork tender, so it went back in for another 20 minutes. 
4. Let everything cool down to a temperature that you can handle and scoop the guts out of the squash and sweet potatoes, into a soup pan.  I use a melon baller,  it is a little weird, but I feel like is does the job the best.  Throw in the red onions, squeeze the garlic out of its paper, add your remaining spices, and then add 4 cups of broth.
5. This is the part where you need to not be like me. Yesterday, I turned on the heat, and brought this to a boil and then used the immersion blender to blend it up.  Molten hot squash soup is not what you want splashing out of your pan onto your arm. . .I’m just saying.
6. Blend the soup in a blender, food processor, or with your immersion blender. . . THEN turn on the heat and heat through.  You may want to add more broth to get the soup to your preferred consistency, also check to see if you need more salt, depending on what broth you used, you may want to add more. 
7. I like to garnish this with a little bit of sour cream and Siracha.