Stuffed Pepper Casserole

These big beautiful peppers arrived from Full Circle Farm not too long ago. I put them to use by making this simple and tasty casserole. It all started with a stuffed peppers recipe I found somewhere> But it only took one attempt at pepper cleaning and stuffing until I realized they'd taste the same casserole style. I did a bit of modifying and came up with a method more conducive to my tolerance level.

My pepper cutting trick: hold the pepper by the stem, cut straight down, make a quarter turn, slice, repeat. At the end you're left holding all the seeds and crud that is still attached to the stem. Toss that baby and you're pepper is ready to go.

Slice the pepper pieces into one inch wide strips and layer in a small baking pan. The white bits you see are pieces of fennel I had in the refrigerator. I don't normally include fennel in this dish but I was looking for a way to use this stuff up. I hate letting food go to waste so I just add in random ingredients here and there.

In a separate bowl mix together the browned burger, rice, tomato sauce and seasonings. Then spread on top of the peppers. Cook in the oven for about 45 minutes.

When there's about 5 minutes left on the cooking time, sprinkle a generous amount of cheese over the whole mess and return to the oven.



Stuffed Pepper Casserole

Ingredients:
1 lb ground meat
1/2 c. uncooked rice
3 or 4 red bell peppers
14 oz can of tomato sauce
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. onion powder
pepper
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 cup or more grated cheese

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Brown the meat and cook the rice. In a bowl, mix together the meat, rice, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, onion powder, and pepper.
Slice the peppers into 1 to 2 inch strips. Arrange peppers in a small baking dish (7in X 11in or so).
Layer the meat mixture over the peppers.
Bake for 45 minutes to an hour depending on how soft or firm you prefer your peppers. If the top starts to get over done, cover with aluminum foil. When there is about 5 minutes cooking time left, remove the foil and cover with shredded cheese. Return to oven until cheese has melted.

~AnnMarie

Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast

Pioneer Woman has never failed me, so I turned to her when it was time to make a pot roast.





She does a marvelous step-by-step on her blog, and I didn't bother to recreate it. I thought I would just hit the highlights. Brown the onion, carrots, and meat over high heat. Set them aside.





Add red wine and beef broth to the pan you used to brown everything. Scrape the bottom of the pan, and pour the liquid over the roast, onion, and carrots.

Note to readers: I am aware that the above picture looks a lot like the first picture. But, there's liquid in the pan now, so it's different. :)





Season with rosemary and thyme.

Note to readers: I am aware that the above picture looks a lot like the first two pictures. But, there's seasoning on the roast now, so it's different. :)




I got to use fresh thyme because my Aerogarden was ready. It was a good moment





The finished roast!

I cut the leftover roast into cubes and put it and the "roast juice" in the crockpot with fresh onions, carrots, and potatoes. It made a yummy soup.

Boeuf Bourguignon or Burgundy Beef

One of the keys to avoiding food boredom is trying new things.  Take this meat, for example.  I usually use chunks of beef to make beef stew, but this popped up in my blog reader, and I decided to give it a try.  I had to make a lot of substitutions, so maybe this dish should be called "Suggestions of Burgundy Beef" or "Essence of Burgundy Beef"...









The first step in my not-beef-stew is to toss the meat in flour.









Heat up some butter and olive oil.  (Is it just me, or does anyone else love butter?)









Brown the beef in batches.  Remove to a casserole dish.









Use the same pan to cook chopped onions.









This stuff works great in place of fresh bacon.  Just throw it in at the end of the cooking.









A little dried parsley...









and spread it  over the beef.









Pour red cooking wine over the whole thing, cover, and bake for an hour and a half.













Mix equal parts butter and flour and stir into the liquid, cover, and put everything back in the oven for thirty minutes.













It's definitely a lot of effort, but the end result is a very tender, very flavorful dinner.

So You've Shot a Large Mammal, Now What?

Our mammal of choice at the Rudstrom home happens to be musk ox. Every year about this time my husband, C.O., harvests a musk ox. Though most local folks don't care for it, we think the meat tastes great and the animal is just the right size to fill our red meat quota for the year. We cut some of the meat into steaks and roasts, grind some for burger, and can some of it.


We save the toughest, less choice cuts of meat for canning.  Cooking under pressure breaks down the fibers leaving it ultra tender.  Also, the meat is thoroughly cooked, so it makes a good last minute meal. We add the meat to stews or make open faced pot roast type sandwiches.

 

First pack the meat and add some seasoning of your choice.  

Be sure to add at least one teaspoon of canning salt per pint.

 I pack the jars half full of meat, add seasoning, pack the rest 

and finish it off with a bit more seasoning.

 

Cook in a water bath until the internal temperature of the meat reaches 170 degrees.

 

Wipe the rims clean before adding the lids.

 

Cover in the pressure cooker and bring to 11 pounds of pressure.

Cook for 90 minutes.

  

The final product!   

It takes a while for the flavors to peak, so I recommend

waiting three weeks or more before digging in.

Our go to resources for projects such as this.

Cooking Alaskan by Alaskans

~AnnMarie

Just Another Sunday Dinner: Cauliflower, Pork Chops, and Salad

I don't really have anything exotic or exciting to share, but this is a pretty typical Sunday dinner for us.

It started with some cauliflower.  I know, I know, cauliflower is one of those unglamorous vegetables with a fairly high yuck-factor, but I've been in love with roasted vegetable recipes ever since I found an earth-shattering broccoli recipe.  (I'll take pictures and share it next time I make it.  It will make your heart flutter.)  Roasted broccoli with garlic was so good that when I came across a recipe for roasted cauliflower, and the store had fresh cauliflower THE EXACT SAME WEEK, I knew I was destined to make it.

I poured some olive oil over the cauliflower.

Note to readers: Steve and I have gone through over two liters of olive oil this school year.  Is this unhealthy?

I added whole garlic cloves.  (They're kind of hard to see, but they're there, I promise.)

As far as Steve is concerned, this is the secret ingredient: bacon.  (Or, more accurately, bacon bits.  You know, the real kind.  The hefty chunks of bacon in a ziploc bag you buy at warehouse stores.)

Sprinkle it all with kosher salt, throw it in the oven, and out comes...

this.  And, yup, it tastes as good as it looks (unless you think it looks nasty, in which case it tastes much better than it looks).  Steve and I polished off an entire bunch of cauliflower.  By ourselves.

But, the cauliflower was only a supporting character to the porkchops.  I have a really good recipe for pork chops with a creamed herb sauce, but I wanted to try something sans sauce.  One of my favorite food blogs posted a simple pork chop recipe, I got right on it (this was kind of a week of food blog providence).

I started the pork chops with rosemary...

brown sugar...

cumin and pepper.

Then mixed it all up on a paper plate because I was too lazy to wash a real dish.

I coated the pork chop with the mixture and threw it in a hot frying pan with some olive oil (see, I use it in everything).

A few minutes on each side, and it was done.  I was kind of embarrassed by the blackened parts, but they tasted really good, so now I display this picture with pride.

Tossed a quick salad with dried cranberries, pistachios, and blue cheese.  Mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmm.

I love Sundays...

Barbecue and Home Fries

Sometimes, you have to have real food.  No matter how creative you get with the stove and treasure hunts to the store, there comes a time when you have to have real meat.  And it has to be grilled.

We are very lucky because we have a big tough Eskimo friend with grill.  He likes to bring it over to our house and cook for us.




This is our tough Eskimo friend barbecuing hamburgers on Steve's birthday.  Notice the snow in the background.  (Also notice the adorable small child "helping" his dad.)

There are two difficulties when barbecuing in the snow: braving the cold outside long enough for the meat to cook and keeping the meat hot as it travels into the house.




Our tough Eskimo friend takes care of the first difficulty.  He can stand outside forever as long as he is equipped with the above grilling necessities.

I usually tackle the second difficulty.  As soon as BTE (Big Tough Eskimo) hollers that the meat is almost done, I run outside with a plate.  He piles the meat on, and I buzz back into the house as fast as my short legs will carry me.  Then I cover the meat with foil and put it in a heated over.  During this flurry of activity Steve is usually...uh...um.... I'm not sure what Steve is doing.  Probably playing his Nintendo DS or something and giving thanks that BTE is outside grilling in the cold instead of him.  (This comment is in no way meant to imply that my strapping husband is in any way lazy.  He works very hard, and I love him for it.  Thank you.)

On our last night in Shishmaref, BTE decided to spoil us with some of his grilling delicacies (I thought about being offended at the fact that he was celebrating our departure, but I knew the food would be good enough that I wouldn't care.  I'm kind of shallow that way.)




This is the barbecue sauce that BTE used to marinate the ribs.  It is made of bottled barbecue sauce, lots of garlic, and probably some other stuff (sorry for the vague details, I was busy doing important stuff on my laptop while he was concocting it).  He soaked the ribs in Sierra Mist as a tenderizer before marinating them in this sauce.





These are the ribs cooking.  I'm salivating just remembering them.  The soda pop tenderizer really did the trick.  They were so easy to chew and yummy!!!  I practically transformed into a feral animal gnawing the meat off the bones as fast as possible.




This is the chicken marinade.  BTE made it by mixing ranch dressing, lots of garlic, bacon bits, and Sierra Mist.  I'm not always a huge ranch dressing fan, but this stuff smelled a-freaking-mazing.  I wanted to eat the marinade all by itself.  Only my fear of salmonella from eating it with a soup spoon.




The chicken was major yum too.  Steve came close to falling in love with it.  That's funny because he usually thinks that chicken is a sissy food.  He said it was Rodizio's good (Rodizio's is our favorite Brazilian grill in Salt Lake City.  It's like an Alston family law that we have eat there every time we're in Utah).



My contribution to these dinners usally consists of running the meat back and forth to BTE and other mundane tasks like slicing pickles and asking Steve to set the table as soon as he finishes the next level of Mario World.  In honor of Steve's birthday, I tried this home fry recipe from my favorite cooking blog: Amateur Gourmet.

I would recommend this recipe who wants to celebrate the real gem of Idaho and is okay with a little deep frying.   (If you're interested, definitely check out Amateur Gourmet's directions.  They will be way better than mine.)

I started by boiling the potatoes.  When they were soft enough that my weak wrists could stab a knife through them, I took them out and cut them into chunks.



Then I fried them on one side with  in oil and butter.  After slightly browned, I flipped the chunks and  added minced onion and an assortment of seasonings.





The finished potatoes were a huge hit.  Everyone at the birthday party (BTE, BTE's oldest daughters, our coworker Coleenie, and our new friend visiting from the Netherlands) devoured them completely.  This recipe instantly made its way into our list of favorites.




I usually leave one of our kitchen windows open when we (meaning: BTE) barbecue.  That way I can hear when BTE needs something, and we can pass meat, foil, sauce, small firearms*, etc. through the window.  Our open window becomes a magnet for any young (and not so young) children in the village.  I've even had my high school students hanging inside my kitchen asking me questions and making small talk...

Our Arctic Barbecues break up the monotony of my crock pot and/or frying pan delicacies.  I would encourage all readers to barbecue even if the obstacles include freezing temperatures and high meat prices.  It's worth it.


*No members of the Alaska Alston family actually have any type of firearms in their possession.