Uncategorized | Kitchen Casual

For the past four years, I thought Eric didn’t like stuffed peppers. Then last week, he requested them for dinner. This was my face.

But I was more than happy to oblige. I love stuffed peppers. I have a recipe I like that uses brown rice and veggies, but Eric insisted that some sort of meat needed to be involved. So I created these.

Stuffed peppers never photograph well. But it sure was tasty.

Now just a note, I used turkey sausage that had been precooked in my homemade pasta sauce, but you could use any meat you want. Just plain ground turkey would also be good. Just add some extra seasonings.

Turkey Sausage Stuffed Peppers

2 red bell peppers, halved and cleaned out
2 links spicy Italian turkey sausage, cooked and crumbled
1 cup cooked white or brown rice
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/4 cup chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste
Cheese for garnish, optional (I used goat cheese, Eric used parmesan)

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) Mix the turkey sausage, rice, tomato sauce and seasonings together in a bowl. Spoon the filling in to the pepper halves.
3) Place filled peppers in a casserole dish. Pour chicken broth in to dish. Cover tightly with tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes or until pepper is tender. Top with cheese, if desired, and serve.

1) I have a new favorite snack that I eat at least twice during the day: apples with honey. There are two things that made me start eating this: 1) the delicious challah that I made last week 2) my dance fitness instructor gifting us all apples for Rosh Hashanah saying we should eat them with honey. Truth be told, this is a combo I had never tried before and now I’m hooked. It is a good thing I bought a giant thing of honey to make that bread, because I am going through it now like crazy.

2) Been loving the crockpot lately. I used it last week to slow cook my pasta sauce and make the red wine braised brisket, and this week we used it to make jambalaya. It is seriously the best. We got a pretty basic one as a wedding present, but I’m beginning to think we might need to invest in a better one since we use it so much. This one from Calphalon has a sweet digital timer while this one has a touch screen.

3) I got a Keurig for Christmas two years ago and it has been my faithful morning companion ever since. While I relying on cold-brew coffee through most of the summer, I find that I am now preferring to make hot coffee. I guess I’m beginning to make the transition to fall (no PSLs to date!). I like to make make lattes using my Keurig. My favorite one uses the Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee K-Cups from Target and Blue Diamond Almond milk. It HAS to be Blue Diamond because it froths up the best. While my coffee is brewing, I put 1/4 cup of almond milk in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Then I use my trusty IKEA milk frother to whip it up and make it all airy and then I add it to the brewed coffee. Add a Splenda or some liquid stevia and BAM — it tastes just like a vanilla latte from Starbucks. Soon I’ll be breaking out my favorite Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee to make homemade pumpkin lattes. Mmmm.

4) Last week my mom texted me if I had ever heard of Revolution Donuts. Um, yes I have. They are usually at the Grant Park Farmers Market on Sunday so I have walked passed the delicious looking pastries before. We were going to try to take a trip to their shop in Decatur this week, but it ended up not happened. I am now going to torture you by sharing pictures of the ones I want to eat.

5) Very excited to be spending the day up in North Georgia tomorrow visiting some of the wineries. Eric and I were both surprised by the quality of the Georgia wines we’ve tried since moving down here. I expected them to all be the sweet, muscadine wines that are common around here, but there have been some excellent wines we’ve tried. We have a Living Social deal for two tastings, a cheese plate and a dessert plate…and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous. So I will be enjoying a weekend without Georgia football by drinking some vino and enjoying the scenery.