Sausage and Rice Stuffed Peppers

It's been 100 recipes, and I'm still alive.  And hopefully, you are too, and maybe even better off for checking in here from time to time.  So for this one, I'm not going to present anything too extreme, just something delicious, healthy, and fairly easy to make.  And for a change of pace, I didn't even use a recipe for this one - just threw some things together from memory in a way that I thought would work out well, and it turned out that it did.

Today we contemplate the stuffed pepper.  Who would ever think to take a large, cavernous vegetable, hollow it out, cram it full of goodness, and then roast it and treat it like an edible bowl?  Well, I don't know, but let's hope that he was given a thousand virgins and quite a few goats for his discovery.  You could do this with tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant or squash if you really knew what you were doing.  But as an easy start, let's focus on the most forgiving of all of these from a cooking and structural integrity standpoint - the pepper.  If you don't like bell peppers, then I have nothing for you.  But consider that you may only dislike green bell peppers, which are slightly less sweet, and consider giving this a try.

Bell Peppers Stuffed with Sausage and Rice
by me

• 2 large red bell peppers
• 1/2 lb Italian sweet or hot sausage, removed from casings if present
• 1 small zucchini, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 rib celery, diced
• 1 green onion, sliced thinly
• 1/2 c coarse breadcrumbs
• 2 oz firm aged cheese, such as Parmesan or Asiago, grated
• 1.5 c cooked brown (or white) rice
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• tomato sauce or aged balsamic vinegar, for plating
• 1 tbsp parsley, minced, for plating

The peppers loaf about lazily on the countertop, unaware of their fate.

Preheat your oven to 400 deg F.

Begin by halving the peppers lengthwise, removing the core and seeds, and cutting away as much of the white membrance as you can (this is bitter, and also takes up space).  Now, in a large saute pan over high heat, brown the sausage in 1 tbsp olive oil, breaking up with your spoon into small pieces.  When browned, remove from pan and drain on a paper towel, and saute zucchini, garlic, onion, celery, and green onion in the next 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Remove to a large bowl.

In the meantime, take a small frying pan and heat the last 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Toast the breadcrumbs if they're not already toasty, and set aside.

Now, the rest is fairly straightforward.  Take everything you've got except the peppers themselves and the breadcrumbs, and stir them together in a big bowl.  Taste, and season as needed with salt and pepper.  Try not to just stop here and eat the whole thing, because you will probably want to.  But we must forge ahead - now stuff this into the pepper halves, packing in the filling somewhat densely and mounding up slightly.  Don't get so crazy that it's spilling out, because next you have to sprinkle on the toasted breadcrumbs.

The filling, resting before an epic journey in a hollowed out pepper through the fires of Mt. Ofen.

The peppers, packed and ready to go.

In a reasonably sized glass baking dish, brush a few drops of olive oil onto the bottom and situate the pepper halves.  Toss in the oven for about 30 minutes, until peppers are soft and starting to brown at the edges, and bread crumbs are brown on top.

To serve, either place on a bed of homemade marinara sauce, or drizzle with balsamic vinegar, as I have done.  I tried this both ways and preferred the tomato sauce version, but both are going to impress people.  Sprinkle with minced parsley, and serve.

Exhausted from their journey, the peppers lie unsuspectingly before hungry predators.

At last, the stuffed pepper has come to its final resting place

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds

This recipe serves to highlight just how bad my picture-taking skills are.  While this was meant to be one of my flagship recipes, because it's so unique, healthy, and delicious, my pictures make this look a bit less than exciting.  And there was no opportunity to go back for another pass, because this disappeared within about a day, and with complete disregard for you, the viewing public.  Oh well, use your imagination of putting this on a bed of lettuce or something.

I found this recipe in a magazine with a number of other salads devoted to interesting grains.  This one was a natural first step, because I already had some cooked brown rice, a bunch of chives in need of a home, zucchini from the farmer's market, and a mountain of sprouts from my most recent sprout-growing adventures.  There really wasn't any excuse NOT to make this dish, and I'm glad I backed myself into this tasty corner.

Brown Rice Salad with Crunchy Sprouts and Seeds
Modified slightly from Bon Appétit, June 2012

• 3/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh chives
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1.5 tablespoons (or more) fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt plus more
• 1 1/2 cups mixed dried sprouted legumes (such as mung beans and lentils)
• 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini, lightly squeezed to remove liquid
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• 2 scallions, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup toasted salted sunflower seeds
• 1/3 cup toasted salted shelled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped roasted unsalted almonds
• Freshly ground black pepper

First, make the chive vinaigrette.  Purée chives, oil, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon salt in a food processor until smooth. Strain chive vinaigrette through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl.

Get the chives, and puree them with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt to make a tasty vinaigrette dressing for this

If you're really worried about the bacterial content of your sprouts (and you probably shouldn't be if you made your own), cook them in a large pot of lightly salted boiling water until just tender, about 5 minutes, which I think is a terrible idea. But assuming you do, after cooking remove them from the heat and let stand, covered, for 3 minutes.  Rinse under cool water and drain them.  Or, my more preferred method - do nothing.  Just throw the sprouts in raw.  They will be much healthier and more delicious that way anyway.

Okay, ready?  Toss everything together.  That's it.  Season to taste with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired.

Wild Mushroom, Barley, and Spicy Sausage Stew

After a bit of a pause, I am back to start posting again.  Wanted to start with a real winner - one of those that everyone who has tried it has had rave reviews on.  A soup that caters to the gluten-free without sacrificing anything.  It's spicy, rich, filling, somewhat simple, and just plain delicious.

I adapted the recipe from Cooking Light: Soups, a book I highly recommend that is a collection of their most popular soup recipes.  Everything in there is golden.  The main changes are the mushroom type and the grain, for which I present an alternative (brown rice) for dietary restrictions.  Barley is slightly preferred for a bit more bite, but only slightly.  Some pictures are for the barley version, and some for the brown rice, but only because they follow almost an identical cooking process, and I have made this multiple times with progressively better photography skills.

A forgiving recipe packed with flavor, great for a cold night

Wild Mushroom, Barley, and Spicy Sausage Stew
adapted slightly from Cooking Light

• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 2 cups thinly sliced onion
• 8 ounces spicy Italian sausage (turkey or pork)
• 1 cup chopped celery, about 2 stalks
• 1 cup sliced carrot
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups dried wild mushrooms, or 5 cups fresh
• 1 1/2 cups chopped portobello mushroom
• 3/4 cup uncooked brown rice, or 1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
• 42 ounces low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh parsley

Quite a few ingredients to prep, but the cooking is completely linear and almost idiot proof.

Prep the ingredients.  If using dried mushrooms, reconstitute in boiling water for up to 20 minutes.  Drain, and chop into coarse bits.  Slice onions thinly, remove sausage from casings.

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat.  Add onion, and cook for 5 minutes or until slightly soft.  Add sausage to the pan, cooking 8 minutes or until sausage is browned and stirring to crumble.  Break up with the edge of a spoon, but don't break up too finely or you'll destroy some of the body from large pieces of cooked sausage.  Add celery, carrot, garlic, and bay leaf; cook 10 minutes or until onions are golden brown, stirring frequently.  Stir in the mushrooms and cook 10 minutes or until mushrooms release moisture.

Make sure to brown the sausage, but you have a healthy error margin on this recipe.  Just keep cooking until things start to develop caramel flavors, then add broth and cook for an hour.

Once all vegetables and fungi are incorporated, stir in the barley or brown rice, chicken broth, brandy, salt, and pepper.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour or until barley is tender, or 40 minutes for the brown rice version.

Discard the bay leaf.  Sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve immediately with crusty bread and a salad.

Tomato Sausage Risotto in Portobello Caps

Coming off of my last successful risotto experience, I wanted to try another flavorful risotto recipe.  While I love the consistency, I have the same problem with risotto that I do with pizza - too much starch, not enough diversity of flavor.  So rather than making one of the essential risottos - mushroom, or cheese, or lemon - I went with a slightly different take - a tomato-based risotto, promising a somewhat unconventional experience.

Your average risotto is made by slowly cooking the rice in hot broth as it is stirred, unfolding the starchy web on the outer layer of the rice so that it can dissolve into the cooking liquid.  Chicken broth is very commonly used for this.  But I was intrigued by the idea of using canned tomatoes instead of broth, just for the variety.  It turns out that this is an amazing twist on your average risotto, transforming a meaty, savoury dish into a lighter, more aromatic dish.  The meat still finds its way in by way of some Italian sausage, but it's a different backbone that was eye-opening and delicious.

Tomato and Sausage Risotto
Modified from Martha Stewart Everyday Food

• 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3/4 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine, or dry Vermouth
• 10 leaves basil, chiffonaded
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter

In a small saucepan, combine tomatoes (with their juice) and 3 cups water. Bring just to a simmer; keep warm over low heat.

In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium. Add sausage and onion; season with salt and pepper. Cook, breaking up sausage with a spoon, until sausage is opaque and onion has softened, 3 to 5 minutes.

Add rice; cook, stirring until well coated, 1 to 2 minutes. Add wine; cook, stirring until absorbed, about 1 minute.

Add about 2 cups hot tomato mixture to rice; simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until absorbed, 4 to 5 minutes. Continue adding tomato mixture, 1 cup at a time, waiting for one cup to be absorbed before adding the next, stirring occasionally, until rice is creamy and just tender, about 25 minutes total (you may not have to use all the liquid).

Here's the process of risotto, armed with a fancy risotto spoon.  Observe how the rice swells and the liquid becomes thicker in these time history photos, taken at the 3 minute mark, the 20 minute mark, and the 26 minute mark.

Remove pan from heat. Stir in basil, Parmesan, and butter; season with salt and pepper. Why the butter?  Because you're "mounting" your sauce.  You heard me.  It's from the French monter au beurre, meaning "build with butter" and pronounced "mount" by the less classy Americans who heard the phrase.  It's the process of adding a cold fat to a hot liquid and getting it to emulsify at temperatures above where it usually breaks down into milk solids, fat, and water.  Restaurants tend to do this to develop a more velvety, bodied sauce, which you have probably simply called "delicious", "rich", or "OMG".  Also, they tend to put in way too much - websites I scanned just called for 1 tbsp butter per 1/2 cup of sauce, so don't get crazy mopping that stuff up with your bread.

These are the finishing ingredients - they only go in at the very end

Now, stand over your dish... and mount it!

Serve immediately, and sprinkle with additional Parmesan, if desired.  For a classy presentation, grill portobello caps and use them as small serving bowls on your plate, as shown above.  A recipe follows.


Grilled Portobello Caps
by me

• 2 medium portobello caps
• 1 tsp coarse dijon mustard
• 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Stir together last four ingredients, and brush onto both sides of mushroom caps.  Cook on a hot grill for 5-6 minutes per side.

Beet Hummus

I had this beet hummus at a wedding recently, and thought it was interesting enough to merit attempting at home.  It was served alongside two other hummus recipes - a pea hummus, and traditional hummus.  Very impressive presentation.  This is just for the one, but it's so good that it can stand on its own.  Pea hummus to follow some time soon.

Beet Hummus

• 1 pound beets (about 2 medium sized beets), scrubbed
• 3 tbsp tahini sesame seed paste
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 small cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp lemon zest (zest from approx. 2 lemons)
• Generous pinch of sea salt or kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper to taste

To cook the beets, cut off any tops, scrub the roots clean, wrap in aluminum foil, and roast in a 375 °F oven put until easily penetrated with a knife or fork, about 45 minutes to an hour. Alternatively, cover with water in a saucepan and simmer until tender, about 30-45 minutes depending on size.  If in a hurry like me, immediately plunge into an ice bath and peel while in the water.  Otherwise, peel once they have cooled.

Place all ingredients in a food processor (or blender) and pulse until smooth. Taste and adjust seasonings and ingredients as desired.  Chill and store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or freeze for longer storage.

Eat with pita chips, sliced vegetables like cucumber, or on crostini.