Shrimp Stuffed Red Peppers

Last night, I stuffed some red peppers with shrimp, quinoa, beans, and garlic. It turned out very well:

Ingredients:

• 6 red peppers
• 1 lb shrimp
• 1 can black beans
• 1 cup red quinoa
• 3 stalks celery
• 1/2 large onion
• 2 heads of garlic
• olice oil
• honey
  
• black pepper
• kosher salt
• paprika
• cream cheese
• Valentina hot sauce

Procedure:
First, I peeled and crushed the garlic and put it in a container with olive oil and pepper to soak. Then, I got the quinoa going. While that cooked, I carmalized the onions and celery with some garlic, pepper, salt, paprika, and olive oil. When that was done, I added some white wine. To that I added the black beans, honey, and salt. When the quinoa was done, that went in too. In a separate pan, I stir fried the shrimp in olive oil with some salt, pepper, and lime. The shrimp went in the big pot to finish up the stuffing.

To prepare the peppers, I cut the tops open like a pumpkin, cleaned out the seeds, and rinsed the peppers. I dropped some olive oil and Valentina's into each pepper. Then, I added the stuffing. I found that the shrimp acted as excellent plunger to shove more stuffing into a pepper. The amount of stuffing turned out perfect - each pepper was stuffed tight and none was left over. After stuffing, I coated the outsides of the peppers with some of the olive oil that the garlic had been soaking in. Then, several cloves of garlic went on top of each pepper.

The stuffed peppers were placed upright in a large baking pan and placed on the bottom rack of the oven, which was pre-heated to 250 degrees. I let that go for half an hour. Then, I decided to bump it up to 275 and let it go for almost an hour, checking every 20-30 minutes. When the peppers were wrinkled and soft, and the garlic was browning, I considered them done.

Resulting Deliciousness:
They turned out great! The only down side was that the shrimp had been frozen, and was not very high quality - I was surprised since Whole Foods stuff is usually pretty good. They were a little low on taste and the texture wasn't great. However, everything was still great. The stuffing is tasty and filling, and the pepper container added a whole level of deliciousness. While eating, I decided to add a sauce - cream cheese, honey, garlic olive oil, and Valentina's. That added a nice creamy texture and really put it over the top.

While the taste of the baked peppers was good, it wasn't nearly as good as roasted peppers. I think the next time I stuff peppers, I'll roast the peppers, peel them, then stuff them and skip or shorten the baking. That could be awesome.

Brined and Roasted Chicken

I made this chicken on May 31 and just realized I never posted it. Here it is for your delight.

Ingredients:

• Brine
• Apple cider
• Cranberry juice
• garlic
• bay leaves
• kosher salt
• pepper
• Chicken
• Potatoes
• Green pepper
• Celery
  
• Onion
• Rosemary
• Thyme

Procedure:
First, I made the brine. I put all of the ingredients in a large pot and boiled them for about 30 minutes, time to get rid of some of the water and carmalize some of the sugar in the juices. While that was cooling off, I put the chicken in a large pot and threw some salt, pepper, and paprika on it. The chicken was covered in brine and left in the fridge for about a day.

Once the chicken had thoroughly brined, I cut up the potatoes, onions, celery, and green pepper. I lined a baking pan with those and added the spices, olive oil, and some cider over top. The chicken was stuffed with more onions, celery, green pepper, and spices, then went on a rack that held it above the vegetables in the pan. I baked it at 275 for an hour, then covered it with tin foil and bumped it up to 300 for 25 minutes. The chicken was too high in the oven and the skin burned just a little. The foil kept that from getting worse while it finished cooking.

Resulting Deliciousness:
This turned out really well. The chicken was moist and flavorful, as were the vegetables that cooked in the drippings and cider. The skin looked pretty burnt, but tasted fine. Next time I'll move it down in the oven to keep that from happening.

Crazy Mashed Potatoes and Mango Cranberry Pepper Roast Turkey

Yesterday, I went to the grocery store looking for something to cook. I knew I wanted to use up the potatoes and onions I had on hand. I also felt like roasting some red peppers and making some lean meat. This is the randomness that ensued.




Ingredients:

• Crazy Mashed Potatoes:
• potatoes
• quinoa
• onion
• celery
• roasted red pepper
  
• frozen vegetables
• honey
• thyme
• rosemary
• black pepper
• red pepper
• white pepper
• paprika
• milk
• butter
• garlic
• olive oil
  
• Mango Cranberry Pepper Roast Turkey
• Turkey tenderloins
• mango
• cranberry juice
• roasted red peppers
• garlic
• salt
• black pepper
• honey
• olive oil

Procedure:

• Crazy Mashed Potatoes:

I basically took all the side dish type ingredients I had and mixed them in a bowl. I took potatoes, cut them, and cooked them with a bunch of seasonings. At the same time, I cooked quinoa with frozen vegetables. That was alot like the pilaf I made in the last few posts. This time, I cooked it in tea instead of water. Onions and celery were sauted with some seasoning and olive oil. I also roasted a red pepper on the stove. Once all that was ready, I combined it all in one big bowl, added milk and butter, and mashed everything together.

This turned out pretty good. It is a very filling, flavorful side dish. If you added some meat, it would be a good one-part meal. Unfortunately, I burnt the quinoa, and the proportions could use some tweaking. This has some decent potential. It also took forever and was a lot of work because of the large number of ingredients that had to be cut and cooked separately.

• Mango Cranberry Pepper Roast Turkey
  

This main dish was much simpler than the mashed potato side dish. I started by roasting two more red peppers. While those cooked and steamed, I lined a normal pyrex baking pan with sliced squash. Then, I cut the tendon out of the turkey tenderloin and placed the meat on the squash. Onto that went sliced mango and roasted red pepper. I added some olive oil, salt, and pepper, then filled the bottom 1/2 inch or so of the pan with cranberry juice. That went into the oven at 325 for 30 minutes. Then, since I was tired and hungry, I bumped it up to 350 for 15 minutes.

The turkey came out so-so. It was a cooked well, but under seasoned. I overestimated how much I would get out of the mango and red pepper baking on top of the turkey. The spots that got flavor from the cranberry, red pepper, and mango were absolutely fantastic. I think I stumbled upon a great flavor combo in roasted red pepper and cranberry, but fell short on the dish overall. When combined with the Crazy Mashed Potatoes, the two flavor profiles do fit together quite well.

------------

This is a good example of what happens when I have a bunch of random crap around that I want to use. Things get over-complicated, but something good almost always comes out of it. I make things up as I go along when I cook more often than not, because it is one of my favorite things to do. I was really tired when I cooked this last night, so my execution was below average and this didn't turn out nearly as well as it could. On the bright side, both dishes have serious potential and I discovered that I really like the way cranberry and roasted red peppers go together. That's a new flavor combination for me and one I'm definitely going to play with more.

Kielbasa Stir Fry and Quinoa Pilaf

This is catchup. On June 20, I pretty much re-made my Chicken Stir Fry and Quinoa Pilaf using beef kielbasa instead of chicken. Not quite as healthy, but delicious. Kielbasa is definitely in my top ten extruded foods.


Ingredients:

• Stir Fry
• beef kielbasa
  
• onion
• yellow pepper
• garlic
• black pepper
• red pepper
• ground ginger
• paprika
• oregano
• olive oil
  
• Dale's
• soy sauce
• kosher salt
• blackberry honey
  
• Pilaf
• white quinoa
• peas
• carrots
• garlic
• kosher salt
• black pepper
• oregano
• olive oil

For the pilaf, I added some frozen peas and carrots and the seasonings to some quinoa and cooked it with a little more water than you usually would. Turned out great and went perfectly with the stir fry. I used more peas and carrots and seasoning this time and it was fantastic.

For the stir fry, I cut up all of the ingredients and cooked them in olive oil until the onions and peppers were carmalized, and the kielbasa was browned thoroughly. I added the Dale's, honey, and soy sauce near the end. On a side note, Dale's is one of the very few pre-made sauces or seasoning mixes I use.

This turned out great. The pilaf was a big step above last time, with more vegetables and seasoning. It was a hair underdone, but the leftovers were perfect after re-heating. The stir fry was incredible, but it is pretty much impossible to screw up something involving kielbasa. I only wish I hadn't been out of celery. That really would have brought things together.