Mum's Stuffed Peppers

Yesterday was me and Dan's first full day back from vacation, and our first day of eating a home-cooked meal since last Thursday. I made my Crock Pot Spaghetti Sauce to use for a few recipes this week, and just to have on hand for lunch or whenever. Seriously, this sauce is amazing and I want to eat it every week. I also made Italian Parmesan Chicken, which was a dish I promised to make again after the first time. The chicken always comes out juicy and tender with great flavor. Served with some roasted potatoes and broccoli, you can't go wrong.

I am very excited to be able to share tonight's dinner with you. When I decided to make my crock pot sauce, I decided to think of some ways to use the sauce other than on top of pasta and just straight up spoon-feeding it to myself. What's so exciting about tonight's recipe? It's my absolute most favorite thing that my mum makes. I have come to find out that my favorite dishes are always simple meals that can be thrown together quickly but taste like you slaved for days. That's these peppers. Simple, basic, and totally to die for. With my crock pot sauce, they might be the greatest meal on the planet. My mom usually uses a plainer sauce, so a little amped up sauce makes them even better (try making my sauce, Mum!).

For my wedding shower, my mother made a recipe book compiled of recipes contributed from my extended family members. I was glad to see this was in the book, along with my other favorite mom-made meal, French Onion Soup. I hope to be sharing more family recipes with you as I try them all!

I cut this recipe in half since Dan won't eat stuffed peppers. I also had some of the steps done before hand, which made this an even quicker meal to throw together. I used half of my ground beef for my sauce yesterday and saved half for the peppers today. And with sauce already made, I had that step done as well, but any tomato or pasta sauce from a can or jar will do if you don't have homemade sauce. The only extra step I had to do today was to parboil my peppers and cook up some white rice. Parboiling is similar to blanching, where you boil a food for a few minutes to help speed up the cooking process. It lets the peppers get a little tender, so they don't need to bake as long. I parboiled mine for 3 minutes and then rinsed them under some cold water. I mixed up my beef, sauce, and rice, and stuffed the peppers and they were ready for the oven! The recipe below is for 4 peppers. My sauce already had garlic and onion in it, so I did not add them for mine.

Mum's Stuffed Peppers
from my mum!

4-6 green bell peppers, tops cut off and insides cleaned out
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup cooked white rice
2 tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 medium onion, chopped
1 cup tomato sauce, plus extra for topping

1. Preheat oven to 350. Parboil peppers for 3-4 minutes and rinse under cold water.
2. Brown ground beef and drain. Add the rice, garlic, onion and 1 cup of sauce to the pan and mix together.
3. Stuff the peppers with the hamburg mix and top with a little more sauce.
4. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes.

I like to mash mine up

Pina Colada Muffins

I'm still trying to pretend that beach week is not over and that I am not going back to work tomorrow. After a week of endless seafood, poutine (oh the poutine!), and summery beach drinks, pina colada muffins seemed like a way to keep the vacation alive.

They are no way near as good as actually being at the beach for a week.

Some highlights of the week include going up a night early ("night zero"), inflatable movie night, the annual bagpipe celebration for McGuirk's, and clambake night. AND, the opening of maybe the greatest bar ever, The Goat. I think I may have spent more time at The Goat than at my cottage. Their poutine (and everything else, is to die for).

Yeah, we watched Jaws on this bad boy

Lobsters and steamers

That picture above is a plate of poutine, a Canadian favorite of French fries, gravy and cheese curds. With a bacon bucket (yes, a bucket of bacon), and some blackberry moonshine lemonades. I had poutine at least 5 times this week....

The only good thing about being home is that my wallet is finally safe and we were reunited with our pups who aren't allowed in our cottage. Other than that, being home stinks!

So, anyways, back to the muffins. These were just okay. They have a nice burst of pineapple from the crushed pineapple, but they need a little more oomph. I think the base batter needs to be changed, and then add the pineapple and coconut. Maybe some toasted coconut to go on top as well...

Pina Colada Muffins
from Mr. Food

1.5 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple
1/2 cup shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line a muffin tin (makes 12).
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg and milk. Add the pineapple and coconut and mix. Add the flour mix and stir until combined.
4. Divide batter evenly into muffin tins, filling about 2/3 full. Bake for 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Oreo Chunk Bundt Cake

In my previous post, I mentioned my bridal shower this past weekend. Included in my awesome gifts was a bundt pan from my bridesmaid Pam. I have mini bundt pans, but I was pretty pumped to finally get a big one. So, when it's raining what else is there to do but bake?

Laundry....there's always laundry to do....

I started looking for recipes that I maybe already had all the ingredients for. I came across this one, and while it's not 100% homemade because it uses a boxed cake mix, it was quick and simple, and allowed me to test out my new pan! It's delicious. It's as delicious and sweet as it looks in the picture. It needs a glass of milk to go with it, just like Oreos. It's original name was Cookies and Cream bundt cake, but when I hear that I think a chocolate cake with Oreo cream. This is a yellow cake with chunks of Oreos baked into it.

Oreo Chunk Bundt Cake
slightly adapted from Chocolate Chocolate and More

1 box yellow cake mix (or white)
Ingredients for mix (3 eggs, 1 cup water, 1/3 cup oil)
3 cups crushed Oreos

For the glaze:
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1 sleeve of crushed Oreos

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Follow the instructions on the cake mix box. Fold in crushed Oreos. Bake for amount of time listed on the box for a bundt cake.
3. Let cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then cool completely.
4. For the glaze, add the butter and milk to the powdered sugar and whisk until smooth. If you want it thinner, add more milk, 1 tablespoon at a time. Drizzle over the cake and top with more crushed Oreos.

Spinach and Artichoke Chicken

What a past week it has been. Summer school has come to an end. My teaching days in Westford came to an end. Pop Warner cheer practices have begun. I started some training in my new school district. Wedding invitations have been sent out. And, most excitingly, my wonderful, amazing, and lovely bridesmaids threw me the best shower ever this past Sunday!

My house is full of totally awesome shower gifts, many of which I hope to feature in this blog soon enough. Tonight you will see a few of the new items and after we return from our beach vacation next week, there will be more!

Today, is has rained non-stopped since morning. The pups have the rainy day blues and have been lounging around on the couch all day. Lana is too afraid to stay out in the rain, and Tess likes to go out for a few minutes, just long enough to get wet and have me towel dry her. She LOVES being towel dried. What have I done today? Finished, sealed and stamped my thank you notes, laundry, baked a cake (coming soon), organized some RSVPs I got, went to the library, the post office and went to Home Goods. I got a couple of gift cards to Home Goods, but today, I just couldn't decide on something to buy. It really bummed me out, because usually I want everything in Home Goods. Today, I just couldn't focus. But I can always go back and browse again later. I have too much on my mind finishing my planning for the beach next week.

Last night, Dan and I finished unpacking almost all of our shower gifts. I had a lot of fun playing around with our new Nespresso machine, getting use out of our new margarita glasses, and using our new dishes! It's like Christmas at my house. Funny thing about last night's dinner is that Dan doesn't eat spinach or artichoke, but likes spinach artichoke dip. This recipe came out great. Just don't forget the 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese like I did. Once we were eating it I stated it needed more cheese or something more salty, and sure enough when I re-read the recipe, I completely overlooked the Parmesan cheese. The chicken came out perfectly moist. The original recipe called for 8 chicken breasts, but there's just two of us. It ended up being cheaper for me to buy a family pack of chicken, so I made all 5, and have some leftovers which was my lunch today and might be my dinner tonight.

Spinach and Artichoke Chicken
from Add a Pinch

4 or 5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 cup mayonnaise
13.75 oz can of chopped artichokes, drained and chopped smaller if desired
10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed to remove moisture
2 shallots, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375. Grease a large baking dish.
2. Place chicken in baking dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile combine the remaining ingredients in a medium bowl. Spread over chicken breasts and bake for 20-25 minutes until chicken is cooked through.

I served ours with some Chicken style rice.

 

 

 

Our new dishes!

 

We had some large chicken breasts, so one cut up with some rice was far more than filling!

There's our new cupcake sign, silverware hooks and Moscow Mule mugs. And Dan making his dinner plate!