Stuffed Peppers

I think the last time I had a stuffed pepper had to have been in the early 90's. Do people even make these anymore??? I am not really sure what made me want to make these, but they were really good and healthy "comfort" food! I found the recipe on Simply Recipes and only made a couple small changes.

Ingredients

* 6 bell peppers (I used a variety of colors)
* 1/2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and chopped
* 1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
* 3/4 lb of 96% lean ground beef
* 1/4 lb of lean ground turkey (you could use all beef or all turkey if you want)
* 1 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice
* 1 can diced tomatoes with oregano and garlic, drained
* 1 tsp of dried oregano
* Fresh ground pepper
* Salt
* 1/2 cup ketchup
* 1/2 tsp of Worcestershire Sauce
* Dash of Tabasco sauce

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Meanwhile, cut top off peppers 1 inch from the stem end, and remove seeds. Then add peppers to the water and boil, keeping peppers completely submerged, until their flesh slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Drain, set aside to cool.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat 1/2 tbsp of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic, and cook, stirring often, until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove skillet from heat, add meat, rice, tomatoes, and oregano, and season generously with salt and pepper. Mix well.

3. Arrange peppers cut side up in a baking dish, then stuff peppers with filling. Combine ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce, and 1/4 cup of water in a small bowl, then spoon over filling. Add 1/4 cup of water to the baking dish. Place in oven and bake for 40-50 minutes (or longer, depending on how big the peppers are that you are stuffing), until the internal temperature of the stuffed pepper is 150-160°F.

Snickers Blondies

I made these blondies for Dub's birthday, which was actually a couple weeks ago but I was a little late in making them (thanks CPA exam)! I chose to make these because bars are easy to transport/give as gifts, and Dub loves candy so I added some Snickers to the batter. I made one pan to give away and then a half pan to keep so that we got to try them too :) I was quite pleased with them- definitely my favorite of all the blondies recipes that I had tried previously! I am pretty sure that Nick, Matt, Blake, and Nat liked them too... Unfortunately they went so fast that I didn't get a very good picture! So, keep in mind that this picture really doesn't do them justice!


Snickers Blondies (adapted from 3B's Toffee Blondies)

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 c brown sugar (I used 1 cup light brown sugar and 1 cup dark brown)
2 sticks melted unsalted butter
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 Snickers bars, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Into a large mixing bowl, mix together: all-purpose flour,baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a second bowl, beat together brown sugar with melted butter.
4. Add egg and vanilla to butter/sugar mixture and mix well.
5. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture.
6. Fold in the chopped Snickers bars.
7. Spray a 9x13 pan with Pam for Baking.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. This time is approximate because I used an 8x8 pan and a 4x8 pan rather than one large pan so make sure you watch it- it is done when a toothpick can be inserted and comes out clean.

Arugula Salad

A couple weeks ago, I saw a segment on the Today show where they made flank steak with tomato jam and an arugula salad. It looked delicious, and we hadn't had steak in a while so I decided to make it the next night. I had really high expectations for this because it just looked so good on tv! I wasn't even sure that I liked arugula because I had only had it once before and thought it was just ok. Well, it turned out that the steak was just ok, and the arugula salad was delicious! Arugula has a slight peppery taste, and it went really well with this vinaigrette. The tomatoes and shaved Parmesan were also great additions.

Here is a link to the whole recipe, but the recipe for the salad is below:
• 1 bunch (about 5 1/2 cups) arugula
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 1/4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• Dash kosher salt
• Dash freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup Regianno-Parmesan cheese, sliced thin
• 1 cup baby tomatoes, halved

Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Add arugula, tomatoes, and cheese and toss well. (You may not need all the dressing so just add a little at a time to the arugula until it is dressed as you like)