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.

Chipotle Shrimp Tacos with Spanish Rice

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated mostly by Americans to celebrate a battle against the French, I'm presenting a recipe served with Spanish rice, and I'm posting it on May 6.  Why?  Because in life, nothing's perfect.  One day, you will come to accept this, and all will be well.

Perhaps a short backstory is in order on this.  I will attempt to guess at your day yesterday.  It's May 5.  It's getting late.  At some point in the day you've had this conversation:

You: "what the heck is Cinco de Mayo all about?"
Anyone who will listen: "I have no idea."
You: "well I think we should probably have a margarita somewhere, just to be sure."

Needless to say, I was no exception.  A quick Wikipedia search turned up the fact that this is not Mexican independence day, and that Cinco de Mayo is hardly celebrated in Mexico at all, unless you're from Puebla, where a fairly spectacular battle was fought against the French in 1862.  But it is celebrated in Mexican restaurants north of the border, and that's good enough for me.  So we settled on making some tacos, which soon gave way to burritos, as we had consumed overly strong margaritas following a 3-2-1 recipe and weren't quite in the mood for portion control.  Also an artifact of the margaritas was our inclusion of tequila in the shrimp recipe, which was invented last night.  And finally, the ingredients of the rice, which started off as plain brown rice but quickly became "whatever you feel like should be in there" rice, and which turned out to be one of the best parts of the meal.

But we'll get to the rice in a bit.  Let's start with these tacos, which were deemed so good that they arguably shouldn't be put on the blog.  After a lengthy discussion and more margaritas, it was decided that the world had to know, so here we are.  Some of the better shrimp I've ever eaten, let alone made.  Let's do this!

Burritos and Spanish rice, the results of a successful night of invention at the hands of a bottle of Herradura

Tequila-Fired Shrimp Tacos-Turned-Burritos
by me, entirely me, and nobody but me

• 1/2 pound large (21-25 count) shrimp, peeled, deveined
• 1/2 tsp cumin, freshly ground
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 chipotle, chopped fine
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp dried chile powder
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1.5 oz tequila
• 1/4 head cabbage, shredded fine
• 1/2 avocado
• Cilantro leaves as desired
• Tortillas
• Sour cream

In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with the next 8 ingredients.  Try to work the lime juice into the shrimp.  Allow to sit for a few minutes, but not enough to accidentally cure the shrimp in the acidic solution.  While marinating, begin heating a large cast-iron skillet over high heat.

Season the shrimp in lime juice and a whole bunch of awesome.

Once smoking hot, add the oil and immediately add the shrimp so you don't burn the oil.  It may splatter if you just dump everything in, so individually add the shrimp, leaving behind the liquid.  Cook the shrimp for 2 minutes, then flip and cook another 2 minutes.

Not too much shrimp!  If you overcrowd, you'll end up with steamed nastiness, not seared crustacean magic.

At this point, a rational person would stop.  But someone 2 margaritas deep will instead forge on, and try to light the kitchen on fire.  By this I mean you will add 1 shot of tequila, and apply fire to it to get it to catch.  I had some difficulty with the flame part, but you can try to tip the pan or use a fireplace starter to get that thing to blow up like the Godfather.  Do it immediately, because it will evaporate quickly.  Once done having fun, remove shrimp to a bowl.

My alcohol-fueled tequila-fired shrimp.  Actual fire is optional.

To serve, assemble burritos/tacos with sour cream, cabbage, sliced avocado, the shrimp, and cilantro if you don't think it tastes like soap (I don't).  Serve with escabeche (pickled vegetables) if you have them, Spanish rice (recipe follows), or whatever you like.  More margaritas, for example.  ¡Olé!

Spanish Rice

• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 2 green onions, white parts only, sliced finely
• 1/2 lime
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup brown medium- or short-grain rice
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt

Begin by cooking the rice, which takes a while given that it is brown rice.  While rice is cooking, prepare your other ingredients.  In a pot, bring 2 cups water to a boil, then add 1 tsp of the oil and the brown rice.  Once boiling, add the brown rice, cover, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 30-40 minutes, until rice is chewy and cooked through.  Drain rice in a colander or large strainer, and set aside.

Get your ingredients ready to go while the rice cooks

In a large skillet over medium heat, add remaining oil, and then add garlic, peppers, and green onion.  Saute for 3-4 minutes until soft and just starting to brown.  Now add the rice and toss to coat.  Stir in tomato paste and salt, and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Just before removing from heat, pour in juice from 1/2 lime.  Serve immediately.

Using brown rice gives a healthy kick, plus a delicious chewy bite to the rice that I thought was a huge improvement over standard long-grain white rice

Come on, work that lime!