Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers

My grandmother has the best recipe for stuffed peppers!  So simple and they're even vegetarian.  All that's required is: pepper, onions, carrots, rice, seasoning, tomatoes, a little bit of olive oil, and some sour cream, which  is optional.

Chopped onions and shredded carrots get sauteed in olive oil, cooled, and seasoned.  Then rice gets added and the peppers get stuffed with the mixture. The peppers boil and pulverized tomatoes get added to the tops.  Take out pepper top with sour cream and enjoy!

Mongolian Beef

Mongolian Beef

I need a wok!  While browsing around, I came across this recipe.  It intrigued me.  I made it...with changes, of course.  Feels like I made so many changes to this recipe that I don't know if it's the same thing or not.

We almost had a mini-disaster before I even started making the meal.  The Guinea Pig was the last to use soy sauce and did not let me know that we wouldn't have enough of the sauce left to make the recipe.  But crisis was averted by a last minute store run.

On to the changes...I don't like ginger, so that went out the door.  I substituted sesame seed oil for canola; I just love how sesame seed oil smells.  I cut the green onions into smaller pieces and because Guinea Pig isn't a green onion fan, I used small ones rather than big.  I also used garlic chili paste rather than red pepper flakes.

On the whole, the meal was a success.  The Guinea Pig enjoyed it a lot.  It wasn't spicy at all - need to add more chili paste next time.  Also, I'll be putting in more green onions next time.  Even Guinea Pig wanted more, which is so unusual.

Peach Cobbler

Peach Cobbler

I came across a peach cobbler recipe and decided to give it a shot.

The Guinea Pig wanted to help out.  As he was grabbing all the ingredients, we noticed that we are all but out of white sugar.  The little bit we had left we used for the dough and the filling got dark brown sugar substituted.

When the cobbler came out of the oven, we couldn't wait to dig in.  I tried all the different parts:  the peach filling, the moist topping right next to filling, and the crispy topping.  They were all good, but not outstanding.  I began thinking this recipe wasn't going to be saved and then I tried all the components together and the dish made sense to me.  In the case of this peach cobbler, the whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

I don't know if I'll keep the brown sugar next time I make it or use regular white sugar like the recipe says.  I would like to make the dough circles for the topping a bit smaller.

Pecan Pie

Pecan Pie

Last weekend I made my delicious pecan pie again.  I followed a recipe I discovered when The Guinea Pig asked me to make one for the first time.  I had never had a slice of pecan pie until then, but the outcome turned me into a pecan pie lover.  I love the crushed pecans that are part of the filling.  The added texture is a great bonus.

This time around, rolling out the dough was the most difficult part of the whole pie making.  It just kept breaking and tearing and didn't want to cooperate.  I still don't know how I forced it into the dish.  I used a tart dish and that worked out great.

Much to The Guinea Pig's dismay, it's going to be a while before I make this pie again with all the trouble I had with the dough.  Maybe I'll make it for Thanksgiving.

Honey Chicken

Honey Chicken

Yesterday was another one of those days.  While at work, I came up with a dinner idea.  I was in a mood for a sweet and sticky sauced chicken.  It was perfect since we had a defrosting chicken breast in the fridge.

When I got home I started out making the marinade/glaze right away.  I mixed together equal parts of honey (I had clover at hand) and hoisin sauce, but the mixture seemed too sweet.  I added some teriyaki sauce and that fixed it.  Next the chicken breast was trimmed of all fat and cartilages, sliced, pounded out, and mixed into the marinade to get some flavor.

After stewing in the marinade for about an hour, I pan fried the chicken on medium-high heat in two batches.  After I put the second batch in, there was left over marinade that I poured into the pan all over the chicken.  The second batch came out considerably darker and stickier than the first.

On a whim, since this was not part of my original idea, I decided to deglaze the pan with some white wine.  Unfortunately the resulted sauce tasted a bit too much like burned sugar.  The chicken, on the other hand, came out fantastic.  I served it with some plain couscous.  The Guinea Pig was very happy with the turnout and is making sure that this one gets saved in the recipe book.

Phyllo Pizza

Phyllo Pizza

I came across a recipe that inspired me to try out a spin on pizza.  I don't know if I can technically call it a pizza, but I'll be happy enough to make a new category called phyllo pizza for this.  It uses phyllo dough and has no tomato sauce.

I sliced and roasted grape tomatoes, red peppers, and mushrooms.  I left them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Next time I think I'm going to start out by roasting the peppers for a few minutes first, add the rest of the veggies, and roast the 20 minutes.

I layered the phyllo dough as listed substituting a butter flavored spray for actual butter.  I then put some fresh basil on the top layer and covered it with the roasted veggies.  I used half a package of grated mozzarella that I had in the fridge on top of the veggies and also topped off the pizza with grated Parmesan cheese and dried oregano before baking for another 20 minutes.

The end product was good enough for me to want to try making it again.  Next time I'm going to use a bit more cheese and I spread the toppings out a little closer to the edges.

Shrimp Stir Fry

Shrimp Stir Fry

It's been a while!  Got the cooking bug again lately and hopefully it will stick around for a bit.  Also, on a bit of a side note, I have new pretty plates to eat my creations from.

The Guinea Pig and I wanted to try out a shrimp recipe and had bought all the ingredients for it over the weekend.  Unfortunately the spinach leaves wilted and neither one of us wanted to go out to the store to pick more up.  We started looking up other recipes to try out with the shrimp, but nothing jumped out at us.  Then, I felt inspired yesterday and started chopping stuff up.

In about an hour or so, I went from having a pound of shrimp to having a delicious dinner ready.  I started out with an Asian inspired marinade and kept adding things to it that I had laying around, like celery and red pepper.  

According to the Guinea Pig, this recipe is definitely a keeper.