Stuffed Banana Peppers and Pasta 2.0

I made stuffed peppers and pasta for dinner at the house tonight.  It was a bit  different from how we made it at the Bistro this past weekend.  I slit the peppers on one side and took out the seeds and membranes.  I cooked up a pound of ground beef and added chopped onion, squash, and bell pepper.  I blanched the peppers for about three minutes then stuffed them.  Then I put them in the oven at 350 F to stay hot until the pasta was ready.  We didn't have linguine like we used at the Bistro, so I used spaghetti noodles and added marinara, errr, pizza sauce.  Then when everything was ready I assembled the food and sprinkled Parmesan cheese over it.  So it was similar to how we make it at the Bistro, but different.  I think the Bistro version looked better, but this was pretty good as well.

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Carrot Cake 2.0

Today I made another carrot cake.  This time I used the tried and true recipe that comes from my Grandma Schrock's collection.  I must say, it turned out astronomically better.  I didn't use the mixer, unlike last time, and mixed everything by hand.  I think that played a big part in it too.  I did not over-mix it and it did not get too heavy.  Also, this recipe called for a cream cheese frosting, instead of a glaze like the other recipe.  So there was no glaze soaking into the cake and making it soggy.  So much better.

Sister-in-law Naomi, the "cake lady," frosting the cake

Mom cutting the cake

The cake

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1 comments:

Joyce St John said...

AWWWW that looks so good! I just showed it to Grandma (she's here visiting Lisa in Washington with me) and she was delighted to see your blog and your Mom and Noami on here. You made our mouths water for good carrot cake!.

August 23, 2010 10:23 PM

Stuffed Banana Peppers and Pasta

So I helped come up with a dinner special for Friday evening at the Bistro.  Like I said in my previous post, we have lots of banana peppers from the garden this year.  So I took some into work.  I slit the peppers on one side; removed the seeds and membrane; then stuffed them with a mixture of red onion, bell pepper, tomato, and jalapenos.  I was thinking about wrapping them in bacon and frying them for an appetizer, but Chef talked me out of it.  So we came up with Stuffed Banana Peppers and Pasta.  Two stuffed peppers breaded and fried; sprinkled with Mozzarella cheese and melted; served with marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese over linguine, and some toasted garlic bread.  They sold three orders Friday night.  Then when I was working last night we sold one.  It looked pretty good.  I took a picture of the stuffed peppers.  However, we were rather busy so I couldn't take a picture of the completed dish.  D'oh!  Hey, I have an idea...  You can go to the Black Bear Bistro tonight and ask for the stuffed peppers.  They are most likely running my special again.

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Carrot Cake

I don't like baking.  It's too complicated.  Especially baking cakes.  You have to be very precise with the ingredients and then you can't mix the cake too much or it will flop.  However, I do bake at times.  Sometimes things turn out good; sometimes not so much.  Friday I made a carrot cake.  The last time I made a carrot cake, a while back when I was still in school, it turned out too heavy.  My friend jokingly called it "carrot steak."  The recipe I used the other day called for carrots plus crushed pineapple and coconut.  So I whipped the batter together, put it in a greased and floured dish, and baked it.  After about an hour or so it was done.  I made the glaze that the recipe said to put on it and poured it over top.  It was a lot of glaze, but I was like, hey, it's what the recipe said so I will put it all on.  The glaze all soaked in after a while.  The next day we tasted it and it was like soggy, soggy.  Too much glaze.  Too much vegetable too, probably.  I will never make that recipe again.  Carrot Cake Supreme, hahaha!  More like Soggy Carrot Cake.  So the next time I try to make a carrot cake I will use the trusted recipe that comes from my grandma.  Hey, I have today off so I make make it today.

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Hummus

I make hummus a lot at the Bistro.  They half-jokingly call me the hummus king.  I think I like to make hummus more than I like to eat it.  I mean, hummus is good, but it's not my favorite thing.  I like to make it because they are so many things you can do with it.  At work we have a recipe for a basic hummus.  We can leave it as it or an we can add stuff.  I like to experiment.  I think the best one I came up with yet was a black bean, grilled bell pepper and jalapeno hummus.  It was quite good.  The Greek style version I made a while back was pretty good too.

I made hummus here are the house yesterday.  It was a 2 bean banana pepper hummus.  The two beans being garbanzo and pinto.  We have an abundance of banana peppers from the garden this year so I added 3 smaller one to the hummus base.  They kinda packed a kick because the hummus turned out quite spicy.  It's good, but kinda hot.

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Honey-Mustard Roasted Chicken

Mom had a pack of chicken quarters thawing the fridge.  I was thinking about making oven roasted barbecue chicken with it, but didn't like the recipe that Mom had.  The BBQ sauce was too simple.  I thought about getting my BBQ recipe that I have from school, but then she mentioned Honey-Mustard Chicken.  That sounded wonderful.  I had to make it.  So I made a sauce with butter, honey, mustard, and a bit of curry powder and salt.  Cleaned the chicken quarters and poured the sauce over it.  Roasted it in the oven for about 1 1/4 hours.  I also made mashed potatoes and sauteed, actually steamed, yellow squash and zucchini.  It was quite good.  The honey-mustard sauce was great with the mashed potatoes.  I think this is good enough to make at the Bistro one day.

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Baked Mac and Cheese / Roasted Veggies with Basil Pesto

The other day Mom said that something she has never mastered yet is Baked Macaroni and Cheese.  So that put me on a mission to find the perfect Baked Mac n Cheese.  I found a recipe for it in a cookbook that I have, Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2009.  It called for elbow noodles, lots of cream and milk, a bit of nutmeg, salt and pepper, sharp and extra sharp cheddar, Monterey Jack cheese, and some cream cheese.  It had a very good taste, but wasn't quite how Mom and I were wanting it to be.  It was kind of dry and the cheese a bit curdled or something.  I think that is how a lot of baked mac and cheese dishes get.  However, we want a creamy version.  So I looked online for some recipes.  I found two.  So my mission sometime soon will be to make them and see how they turn out.

I also made Roasted Vegetables with Pesto Sauce.  I cut up carrots and sweet potatoes and roasted them for about 45 minutes.  Then I added sliced squash and cabbage and roasted it some more until the veggies were all soft.  Then tossed it all in some of the basil pesto that I had made earlier.

I hate Verizon Wireless.  I had taken some good pictures of the food with my phone, but then couldn't send them to my e-mail address because Verizon messed my phone up.  It's a long story but I could send them earlier today and now I can't.  I had to take some pics of the leftovers with Janina's digital camera.  So the food doesn't look as good as it would have with the other pictures.  Dumb Verizon!

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