Stuffed Green Bell Pepper

I grew up on these things.  My Mom and Dad always used the old Better Homes and Gardens red and white checkered cookbook recipe.  Mom used to prepare them the night before and cover them with saran wrap then refridgerate.  The only thing they needed were to be baked and served. Mom and Dad both worked so whoever got home first baked them.  Usually Mom got there first, but one night Dad beat her home.  He heated the oven and threw in  the stuffed peppers.   The only problem was that he forgot to take off the saran wrap.  Luckily saran wrap shrivels before melting, so we were able to get most of it off.  Also luckily, melted saran wrap didn’t kill us when we ate it.

Dad worked for Remington Arms/ Dupont at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant.  For Christmas 1979, Lake City made up a cookbook of “Favorite Lake City Recipes.”  450 pages of about 1500 recipes.  On page 146, a primer inspector named Jackie Cort of Bldg 35 listed her Stuffed Pepper recipe.  In it, she added the horseradish.  It adds a nice little zing.  Skip it if it scares you.  I like it!

Stuffed Bell Peppers 

6 bell peppers

1 tsp Salt (keep the salt shaker on standby)

1 tsp black pepper

1 ½- 2 lbs hamburger

1 chopped onion

2 14.5 oz cans tomatoes

1 cup water

1 cup rice

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

8 oz shredded American or cheddar cheese

1 tblspn horseradish

Cut of tops of peppers and spoon out seeds and membrane.

Boil in salted water 5 minutes (skip this part if you like your peppers very crisp)

Take out of water.  Sprinkle inside with salt (shake it like a salt shaker) and set aside on plate.

Scramble the hamburger  and onion and drain.(Refer to that post. If not, just brown it.)

Put back in skillet and add salt, pepper, tomatoes, water, rice, Worcestershire sauce, and horseradish.

Bring to boil and let simmer about 5 minutes (until rice is tender).  If there's still excess water, let it simmer longer to boil off that liquid.  You want the meal mosit and tender but not soggy. 
Stir in the shredded cheddar.

Place peppers in a large baking dish (I use a 9x13)

Fill peppers with meat mixture, then spoon the rest of the meat mixture around the peppers.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Let stand about 5 minutes before serving.

Serve with grated Parmesan cheese, bread, and butter.

Now that’s some good stuff, or should I say stuffing?

Enjoy!

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Click on picture to see the whole thing

I have always loved pineapple upside down cake.  I'm not sure when I tried it for the first time, but my guess is probably the chow hall at NAS Jax, Florida.  I'm also sure I had a big glass of cold milk too.  Oops, drooling on the computer, let's get to the recipe.

When you read recipes in the cookbooks, they're all about the same, except for the newer cookbooks don't walk you through making the cake yourself.  Instead they recommend using a boxed yellow or white cake mix.  I've made my own and I've tried the mixes, and I gotta tell ya, for a buck and a half, get the mix.  I would recommend that you at least once make a cake from scratch, though.  Sorry, this time I'm using the mix. But, with some adjustments.  Don't worry, very minor.   : )


Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 20 oz can pineapple slices
1 jar marachino cherries, no stem
1 box yellow or white cake mix
1/4 cup sugar
1 orange
plus eggs, oil, etc on cake mix box
crushed walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350 degrees
Use a 13x9  pan,  melt the butter in the oven
Sprinkle the brown sugar over the butter.  Spread it out to cover the whole pan.

Drain  the pineapple (but save the juice) and place the slices in the pan.  Try to arrange them pretty evenly in the pan.  Then put a cherry in the middle of each slice and if you want, place  a few extra in between.  If you want, sprinkle those optional crushed nuts on there, but don't over do it.

Check the mix box and see how much water it calls for.  Then substitute the water with a mixture of the left over pineapple juice, the juice of one fresh orange, and water.  That's the 1st adjustment. Then mix it all up as directed on the box plus throw in an extra 1/4 cup of sugar. That's the second and final.

Pour the mix over the pineapple and cherries.  Bake for 45 minutes (check the side of the cake mix box).  Test with a toothpick or a fork to make sure it's done.  If it is, the toothpick or fork will come out clean.

Pull from oven and immediately run a knife around he edge of the pan.  This will loosen the cake so it won't stick.  Now place a plate of pan bigger than the cake pan over the cake pan.  Use something that won't melt.  Turn the cake over onto the plate.  Leave the pan over it for a little over 5 minutes to make sure all that juice soaks into the top of the cake, then pull the pan off.  Doesn't taht look yummy?  Let it sit for at least 30 minutes before you cut and serve it.  If ya feel like it throw on a little whip cream.  MMMmmmmmm!

There's that drool again.....  Enjoy!

Beef Stew - More Winter Comfort Food

Beef Stew

1 ½ lbs stew meat

5-6 cups water
1/4 cup red wine

4 beef bullion cubes-or 3 tablespns instant  bullion - or 1 cn beef consumme

1tspn salt

3 large potatoes

2 stalks celery

3 large carrots

2 large onions quartered – or 10-12 pearl onions

½ tspn kitchen bouquet

Flour

Shortening

 Flour meat then brown in shortening.  Put in a large kettle.

Add water, bullion, and kitchen bouquet. Add wine.

Bring to boil and let simmer for two hours.

Add veggies and simmer another hour.

Eat and Enjoy!

The easiest way to flour meat is to put in a bag, add enough flour to coat meat, and shake.

We’ve used frozen beef vegetables.  I would use two bags but one will be ok.  If you use the dry pearl onions in a bag, be sure to let cook long enough for the onions to soften real good.

Now, if it were up to me, I’d add about a cup of ketchup to the recipe.  My wife doesn’t like it like that, so I add my ketchup at serving time. Sometimes I add a little tobasco.  Mmmm!

We like to get a bag of fresh French bread to go with it, too.

So there ya go.  Nice comfort food for a cold day.

Enjoy!

Again with the Chasseur Sauce

Remembering back to my post on Tornados Chasseur and again with Prime Rib, I love Chasseur Sauce.  Well, last night I had a steak and wanted some sauce.  I looked in the cabinet and there was no Beef Broth.  But, there was an envelope of Au Jus.  So I made some up.  I didn't use a recipe, just kinda threw it together.  It was the best ever.  After dinner I went back and read the recipes.  Pretty close but what made the difference was that I added more butter, used some wine, and since I have fresh rosemary in the yard, I threw some of that in too. Of course, there's always garlic, so it went in.  Then, who knows why, I spotted one of those school lunch box size boxes of raisins in the cabinet and I threw that in too.  The last thing I did different was it was a little runny so I let 'er simmer.  This does a couple things.  First it burns off the excess liquid including the alcohol from the wine.  Then it draws out and blends all the flavor.  What came out was a thick Chasseur Sauce that was to die for!

Chasseur Sauce

1 envelope Au Jus (I used Lawrey's)
1 cup water
1 1/2 tblspn ketchup
1/4 cup wine
half an onion chopped
1/2 pound fresh mushrooms sliced
1 tblspn minced garlic
3 tblspns butter
1 tspn rosemary
1 small box raisins

start with the butter onions, galic, and mushrooms. saute

In a shaker, mix everything else.  Shake it up baby!  Add to pan and let simmer until it reduces to a nice thick sauce.

You're gonna like the way it tastes.
Enjoy!

Chicken Italian

In 1978, I lived on the Westbank in  New Orleans, Louisiana.  I lived in a really nice apartment complex called Higgins Gate.  The entire complex was wiped out by hurricane Katrina in 2005 (long after I had left)  On Friday afternoons, I would ice down a case of Bud and go sit by the swimming pool.  Yes this was every Friday (or at least most of ‘em) as I remember.  People would come by and I would share my beer.  The catch was that when we ran out, someone else had to go get some more.  This worked really well for it meant we had a great party every Friday night plus after a while, people would just bring beer and we’d never run out.  One night a guy named Cary, an offshore welder and I were the last ones standing and we decided we wanted to get something to eat.  We were walking towards the parking lot when we ran into a neighbor, Jay.  Jay and his wife were both nurses and some of the nicest people you could ever meet.  I don’t remember where Jay’s wife, Becky was, but Jay was just getting home from a party.  We told Jay of our plans and he said that if someone else drove his truck, he would treat us to the best steak we ever ate.  So I was driving with jay in the middle and Cary at the passenger window. Jay was giving directions.  We drove over the I-10 Mississippi River Bridge and was headed west.  We went past Fat City/ Metairie and still heading west into nowhere.  I asked Jay where in the heck we were going.  His reply “Lake Charles!”  Now, Lake Charles is over 200 miles away from New Orleans  meaning we still had about a three hour drive on our hands.  Remember at that time even on the I-10 it was 55mph.   It wasn’t long before both Jay and Carey were asleep.  I took the opportunity to reverse direction back towards home.  When we got to Metairie, I saw a sign for Steak and Eggs and pulled in.  Carey woke up but we couldn’t get Jay’s attention long enough to ask if he wanted to come in.  We ate and headed back to Higgin’s Gate.  We managed to get Jay inside and closed the door behind him.  He slept in the apartment’s entryway.  The next afternoon, I was telling Jay the story.  He had no recollection of even seeing me, let alone the drive.  We laughed and he asked how he could make it up to me.  Oh boy, I knew the Answer right away.  One of the best things on the planet is:

 Jay and Becky’s Chicken Italian. (it was Becky’s Mother’s recipe)

5 lb chicken

2 qt chicken stock (made while cooking)

2 8oz pkg noodles

1 can mushrooms

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 green bell peppers

1 cup diced celery

2 chopped onions

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 cans tomato sauce

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 ½ tsp tobasco sauce

Parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, cook until tender in 2 tbsp oil, bell peppers, half the celery, half the onions, mushrooms, and garlic.

Add tomato sauce, Worcestershire, and tobasco.  Cook slowly one hour.

Cut up chicken and place in two qts water.

Put in the rest of the onion and celery and add some salt and pepper.  Boil until chicken is tender then bone and cut it up.

Use stock to cook the noodles and pour of excess.

Mix it all together.

Serve with Parmesan cheese.

You gonna want seconds!

I haven’t seen Jay and Becky in years, but I caught up with them on facebook.  Isn’t facebook fantastic?

Enjoy!