Sausage Stuffed Banana Peppers

In the summer, I like to stock up on hot banana peppers. Aren't they pretty??? They are so good chopped up in sauces, roasted in a little olive oil, sauteed with onions for hot sausage sandwiches, or stuffed and baked.

Our favorite is to stuff them with a mixture of hot turkey sausage, cheeses, and spices...cover them with marinara sauce and baked them until they are bubbly and delicious.

Here's my recipe, well sort of. Its one of things that I toss together, I don't really measure.

Sausage Stuffed Banana Peppers in Marinara Sauce

(Source: me!)

4 banana peppers (washed, topped trimmed, sliced open, and seeds/ribs removed)

2 links of hot Italian sausage, casings removed

1/3 C Italian cheese blend (parmesan, asiago, romano)

1 tsp minced garlic

salt, pepper

parsley

1 C marinara sauce

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix sausage, cheese and spices and mix until just blended. Divide evenly between peppers. Place peppers in a baking dish, sprayed with cooking spray. Top with marinara sauce. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until bubbly.

Crab Stuffed Artichokes

I decided to make Norm stuffed artichokes....I hadn't had them in a long time, and he's never had them. Plus I had some extra time considering I was off all week. They are super easy, and you could probably stuff them with just about anything. They'd also be good with a dipping sauce of some sort - like an aioli or something.

Here's what you do. Trim the sharp little barbs off the top of each leaf and cut the stalk off the bottom as you'll want to stand them up to stuff and bake them.

Steam them for about 30 minutes - long enough so that the leaves are soft and you can pull them out a bit to stuff them. Stuff and bake for about 20-25 minutes until they are warmed thru.

Here's what I stuffed them with:
2 T melted butter
1/2 - 1 cup of bread crumbs
salt, pepper
parsley
italian seasoning
garlic salt
1 small can of crab meat

Mix all together until it's a moist stuffing. Spoon into artichokes and bake.

Thanksgiving 2008 - Roasted Butternut Squash

See how far behind I am???

I told my mom that I'd help out with the Thanksgiving feast this year. I made some steamed green beans with some chopped proscuitto and pine nuts, a tossed salad with diced green apple, toasted walnuts and crumbled blue cheese, and some damn tasty roasted buttternut squash.

The squash was super easy...

4 C of cut up squash (my grocery had it pre-cubed...way easy)

salt

pepper

garlic salt

3 T fresh sage, chopped fine

1 shallot sliced

1-2 T olive oil

1-2 T balsamic vinegar

Toss all ingredients in a bowl. Pour into a 9x13 pan, sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until tender. Yummy.

I am a Weight Watchers message board addict....seriously. I have 3 very large word documents of recipes that I have copied and pasted from message board posts. I keep sneaking them into meals, springing them on Normie...but for the most part they've been winners, so I don't think he minds too much!

I have made this a bunch of times now...but I sub chopped, sauteed portabello mushrooms for the asparagus. It's delish! It's a great, healthy side dish that can be varied in so many ways.

Barley-Asparagus "Risotto" with Balsamic Vinegar

(Source: weight watchers message board)

Servings: 6

2 tsp olive oil

1 medium onion(s), minced

1 cup uncooked barley, use quick-cooking pearl variety

3 cup fat-free chicken broth, or vegetable broth

1/2 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces

1/4 cup chives, fresh, sliced

1 1/2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/8 tsp table salt, or to taste

1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste

2 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Warm oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until onion is tender, about 6 minutes. Stir in barley and cook, stirring, about 1 minute more. Add broth, cover and simmer over low heat for 8 minutes; stir in asparagus and simmer 2 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in chives and vinegar; season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with cheese and serve. Yields about 1 cup per serving.

Chinese Take Out (at Home!)

On a whim one day, I bought this Newman's Own teriyaki marinade. This sauce has been in the cupboard for like a month, so I figured we needed to crack it open and try our hand at some take-out in the comfort of our own kitchen. Probably not as tasty as from a traditional restaurant, but definitely healthier!

So I decided on marinating some chicken tenders in the teriyaki sauce, and to stir fry some veggies (snow peas, peppers, onions, mushrooms). Of course no Chinese meal would be complete without rice....so I had to try out a recipe I found online for a healthier version of fried rice.

Everything turned out really well! It was pouring down rain, so I used the grill pan to cook the chicken. It had been marinating for over an hour, so the meat had a chance to soak up some of the yumminess. While it was cooking, I stir fried the veggies (using a touch of mongolian fire oil, a dash of sesame oil and a minced garlic clove for flavor).

Here's how I made the fried rice...

Cooking spray

2 C cooked brown rice

1 egg, slightly beaten

2 tsp sesame oil

1/4 C chopped carrot

1/2 C peas (I used frozen)

1/2 C chopped onion

1-2 T soy sauce

Heat a wok over med-high heat. Coat very well with cooking spray, add egg. Scramble egg, remove and keep warm. Wipe out wok, and put back on burner. Add 1 tsp sesame oil and heat. Add vegetables and stir fry until crisp tender. Remove and keep warm. Spray wok if necessary and add remaining sesame oil. Let it heat up and add the rice. Stir frying until it's heated thru, keep stiring to break up any clumped up rice. Add back in eggs, veggies, and add soy sauce and stir until combined Season to taste with salt, pepper, etc.

Quinoa with Black Beans

This was a simple side dish that works to help incorporate different whole grains into our diet. I think it took Norm more than a little convincing to eat it though! The first time I made quinoa it was nothing great...good, edible, served its purpose as a dutiful side dish, but wasn't anything spectacular.

I can only eat so much brown rice, so I convinced him to give it another shot. I got this from a Weight Watchers message board...and figured what the heck, it seemed like it would be perfect with the broiled tilapia and steamed asparagus we were having. We both liked it a lot so it may go into regular rotation! This makes a TON...I only used 1 can of beans, and added a little more spice (a chopped jalapeno, and additional cumin).

Quinoa with Black Beans

(Source: Weight Watchers message board)

1 tsp canola oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

3/4 C uncooked quinoa

1 1/2 C chicken or beef broth

1 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

salt and pepper to taste

1 C frozen corn kernels

2 (15oz) cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 C fresh chopped cilantro

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic,sautee until lightly browned. Rinse quinoa with cold water (use a fine seive). Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with broth. Season with cumin, cayenne, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Add corn and cook an additional 5 minutes or until corn is heated through. Stir in black beans and cilantro.

Eggless Caesar Salad

This is one of my new favorite salad dressings! I have been on the lookout for an alternative to my ol' standby olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing.

I have made this so many times since we first tried it. This is also from the South Beach Diet Quick and Easy cookbook, but I've been playing with the ingredient amounts to suit our tastes. Personally, I like more dressing, so I upped the amount of everything except the olive oil. I keep tweaking it, but it's really just plain good!

We have also had this salad served with grilled salmon on top for a filling lunch or with grilled mushrooms and asparagus for a little something extra to accompany dinner.

Eggless Caesar Salad
(Source: South Beach Diet Quick & Easy cookbook)

1 T fresh lemon juice
2 anchovy filets, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 t dijon mustard
1/4 C extra-virgin olive oil
1 T grated parmesan cheese
1 (1 1/2 lb) head romaine lettuce, chopped (8-10 cups)

Whisk together lemon juice, anchovy, garlic and mustard in a large mixing bowl; slowly whisk in oil. Stir in cheese and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add lettuce, toss, and serve.
Makes 4 (2-Cup) servings.

160 calories; 15g fat; 2.5g saturated fat; 3 g protein; 4g carb; 2 g fiber; 125 mg sodium

Playing Catch Up...again (and Indian Spiced Lentils)

Blogging is hard, if you don't have a computer handy. = )

Our laptop took a dive around the middle of April...causing much distress. Norm couldn't check his fantasy baseball Web site, I couldn't blog or do any of the fun internet things that I can't (um or shouldn't) do from work. We had to send it away to get fixed. The entire process took far too long (like 3 weeks!) so we were very happy to get it back and fully functional.

In the meantime, I did spend a fair amount of time in the kitchen making some yummy stuff.

So here's the first of the catch up recipes...Indian Spiced Lentils. I found this in a South Beach Diet cookbook. I wasn't sure I could convince Norm to try lentils. Outside of his Dad's authentic Indian dishes, I don't think he has had too many things where lentils were a major player. The dish was yummy. Since we like our food on the hot side, I added some extra heat from a jalapeno...and I upped the curry powder for more flavor. We had it with some grilled salmon and broiled eggplant.

Indian Spiced Lentils
(Source: South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook)

4 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 jalapeno, diced (not in original recipe)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp curry powder (I used closer to 1 T)
1 C dried lentils, picked over and rinsed
1 1/2 C chicken broth
2 T chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and saute until softened, about 3 minutes. Add garlic, and cook 1 minute more. Stir in curry powder and lentils. Add broth, bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and papper. Stir in parsley just before serving.

Brown Basmati Rice with Mushrooms and Toasted Walnuts

Dammit my pictures suck. Must. Work. On. Photography. Skills.

Anyway...this was the side dish served with the apple and gorgonzola pork tenderloin. We also had some steamed green beans and a tasty tossed salad.

The original recipe was from allrecipes.com. I found it a couple of years ago, when we first started playing house together. It calls for orzo, but do you know how hard it is to find whole wheat orzo to make this a South Beach friendly dish??? Ugh. So I figured that I'd just make some brown basmati rice, cooked in chicken broth (canned, with herbs). And that I'd saute the 'shrooms, etc seperately and mix it all together at the end. Turned out pretty freakin' tasty. If I do say so myself.

So here's the original recipe...as written it makes a ton. I cut it in half for us, and we still had leftovers. I used a mushroom mix that had porcini, bella, oyster and maybe something else...and just used a little olive oil (like 1/2 T).

Orzo With Mushrooms and Walnuts
(Source: allrecipes.com)

1/3 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups uncooked orzo pasta
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place walnuts on a baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until they release their aroma. Stir once or twice for even toasting.

Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute onion and mushrooms until tender and golden brown.

Pour in broth, and bring to a boil. Stir in orzo, reduce heat to low, and cover. Simmer until orzo is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. If after 15 minutes there is still liquid, remove cover, and cook until liquid is gone. Remove from heat, and stir in walnuts. Season with salt and pepper to taste.