Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers

From:  From Valerie's Kitchen

6-8 Bell Peppers (use eight and take dinner to your neighbors.  The filling here makes a lot)

1 to 1.25 pounds spicy sausage (Spicy Pork or Italian works well)

2 Tbsp (or one packet) taco seasoning

1/2 cup diced onion

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1 can (14.5 oz) fire roasted diced tomatoes (like RoTel)

1.5 cups cooked white rice (any cooked rice.  Use leftover rice if you have it, even fried rice from last night's chinese take out!)

1 can (4 oz) diced green chile, I didn't drain it

1 cup frozen corn (I used 1 can of corn, drained)

1 can black beans (15 oz).  Drained and Rinsed

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper  (I used one pizza packet from dominoes!)

1.5 to 2 cups shredded cheese (divided)

Toppings if you like:  Sour cream, cilantro, onion, tomato

Preheat oven to 400.

Slice tops off of peppers, remove seeds and ribs, place into a baking dish and add 1" of water.  Bake 20 minutes until slightly tender.Remove peppers and pour off water. Return peppers to baking dish.

While the peppers are in the oven, make the filling.  Brown sausage, drain fat if necessary.  Add onion and garlic and cook to soft.  Reduce heat and add taco seasoning, tomatoes, tomato sauce, beans, rice, chiles, corn, crushed red pepper, and 1 cup of cheese.  Cook to combined and cheese melted.

Fill peppers with sausage mixture.  Turn oven down to 375.  Cover with foil and bake 25-30 minutes or until peppers are tender and filling is heated through.  Remove foil, Add remaining cheese to top, bake another 5 minutes uncovered to melt cheese.  Serve!

Comments:  SO DELICIOUS!  Leftovers heat up very well.  Also, I can't see why you couldn't make these ahead of time and reheat.  Kids will frown at the bell pepper "container" but they will like the filling.  Do yourself a favor and remove the bell pepper and give the kid a tortilla and ranch for dipping... it will work, trust me!

Bake that Bacon!

I'm sure everyone on earth knew this, and I had heard it several times but finally had opportunity to try making bacon in the oven as opposed to fried on the stove.  It is wonderfully easy, less messy, and much less smoky to bake it.  Turns out flat and perfect.  Use thicker bacon, the thin just doesn't stand up as well to any type of cooking, really.

Fit a cookie rack on a jelly roll pan.  Place bacon on the rack so it is sitting above the base of the pan, so air can get to the top and bottom of the bacon.  Try not to stretch it out.  Do NOT preheat your oven, I repeat:  NO PREHEATING.  Place the bacon in the baking sheets on the oven rack (I use two sheets fitted with racks for one pound of bacon),  If you are using two baking sheets, place one on each oven rack.  Close the oven door and turn oven on to 400 degrees.  Bake bacon for 16-20 minutes, watching it close after about 15 minutes to make sure it doesn't burn.  My top rack cooks the bacon faster so it should have come out at about the 16 minute mark, it got a tad crispy, and then the bottom rack took a bit longer, I had to extend that slightly over the 20 minute mark, I just checked it each minute.

Remove when the bacon edges are starting to get golden, keep in mind it will still continue to cook as it cools so don't overbake it.  Also, remove the bacon immediately to plates lined with paper towels, don't let it sit on the rack in the pan because the grease in the pan will have enough heat to continue actively cooking and the strips will burn.  Then, of course, scrape the fat drippings into a jar so you can make soft ginger cookies with it later.  Mmm.  Bacon. 

THE Chocolate Icing

I've found it.  A chocolate icing that should be applied to the cake or brownies when they come out of the oven, warm.  It will work on sheet cakes or brownies.  I have not, however, found a favorite cake or brownie recipe that is family tested and Trent approved.  Came close with the mayonnaise cake, black magic cake, and texas sheet cake, but for some reason or other, we both had critiques of each recipe.  We shall continue the search.  But, this icing is TDF.

Start the recipe so it coincides with the cake/brownies coming out of the oven.  Brownies/cake should be frosted as soon as it is removed from the oven, CAREFULLY!  You will tear apart a hot cake so go slow and easy.  Plop the icing on and spread, carefully, carefully.

1 stick butter

4 Tbsp Cocoa powder

6 Tbsp milk

1 lb powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter in saucepan on low heat (not microwave).  Add cocoa and milk to the saucepan, Stir/whip until mixture is combined and just bubbles,  Remove from heat immediately. At this point, if necessary, transfer cocoa mixture to a bowl to accomodate the sugar.  Beat in powdered sugar and then vanilla.  (If your saucepan is big enough, simply mix it in the saucepan!)

Spread icing carefully onto brownies/cake within ten minutes of being removed from the oven.  This is a careful process, maybe let the cake/brownie sit for a few minutes and then spread the icing.  CAREFULLY!  

Did I say that enough?  It is hot and will tear.  Plop it in several areas onto the cake and let it warm a bit, then distribute the icing around.

Beef Stroganoff

I just ate the rest of the leftovers from Trent making this last week and WOW!  GOOD! He says this is blog-worthy, I agree!  From Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman cooking show. 
This is in the weekly rotation, for sure.  A yummy way to stretch one sirloin steak into several servings.

Beef Stroganoff

1 lb petite sirloin steak, cubed
Salt
Olive Oil
2 lbs fresh mushrooms, halved (less if you don't care for that much mushroom!)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup cooking Brandy
2 cups beef stock or beef broth (beef stock is better)
2 Tbsp Corn Starch and 3 Tbsp beef stock to make a slurry
1/4 to 1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard or any brown or seasoned mustard (not honey mustard, though.)
1 package dry egg noodles
Water to boil the noodles
Melted butter, a few tablespoons should do it


Start the water to boil the package of egg noodles.  Salt the water with 1 tsp salt.

Salt the cubed beef to taste, maybe a 1/2 teaspoon for 1 pound of steak.

Heat olive oil to very hot in a skillet, but not to smoking.  Brown the cubed beef in batches until just browned, do not cook through.  Set aside on a paper plate.

To the skillet, add onion and carrots and saute to soften (a few minutes) then add mushrooms and cook through (this doesn't take long.  Another few minutes).

Add the brandy and the 2 cups beef stock to the skillet with the onion, carrot, mushroom mixture.  Allow to simmer and reduce a bit, just to thicken slightly.

Make a slurry in a small bowl or glass with the cornstarch and the 3 Tbsp beef stock. You can add more stock if you'd like, if you need to thin the slurry a bit.  This is used to thicken the sauce.

Add the slurry to the skillet, and cook to thicken.  When the sauce coats a spoon, add the beef back into the skillet and and continue to cook until the beef is done.  Reduce heat to low and add the sour cream and mustard.

Cook the noodles as you are making the stroganoff, it takes about 8 minutes to cook the noodles.  Don't be afraid to remove the sauce from the heat if it is over-thickening.  Put a lid on it and just let it sit for a few, no big whoop.

Drain the egg noodles and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process. Toss the egg noodles in a few Tbsp melted butter.  Serve!   

This is GOOD STUFF!  You can forego the brandy if you wish, just skip it or substitute in some more beef stock.  But it is really good with that brandy flavor in there!  

Idaho Finger Steaks

Adapted from Idaho-Style Finger Steaks from allrecipes, by emmyjay1

I have  a lot of deer meat to use up before the next one (maybe two!) are going into our freezer this fall.  

We cut up our own game, and I know I'm not alone in this, I have to let the deer meat chill out (literally) in the freezer for a bit after cutting it up because it's all just a little too....fresh in my memory right off the bat.  Not that it's gross, it's fascinating, actually, and you get to really appreciate the animal and they way the meat is handled.  But I still need a couple three to four weeks before I can prepare it with gusto.  That does leave me with a bunch to use up before the next one is ready to come home to our house and feed us.  Therefore, this recipe.  I have a lot of stew meat, chunked up meat that did not fall into the steaks or backstraps categories, basically.  

NOTE:  This is an overnight marinating recipe, and then on the day of cooking at least an hour freezer time.  Plan accordingly.

Idaho Finger Steaks
1 egg
2 cups buttermilk
2 Tbsp Montreal Steak Seasoning (we like the Spicy)
1/2 cup flour
Deer Stew Meat, or any wild game steaks cut into either chunks or strips  (the ones I did were between 1/2" and 1" nuggets)

Mix egg, buttermilk, seasoning and flour in bowl large enough to accomodate the amount of meat you are doing (usually between 1-2 pounds total.)

Add thawed deer meat to buttermilk mixture, coat well and cover, marinate overnight or at least 8 hours.

On a paper plate, mix:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper or more to taste

Dredge each piece of deer meat from the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and set on a parchment covered cookie sheet in a single layer.  When they are all coated, place in the freezer for at least an hour.

Heat a few cups of oil in a frying pan to 370 degrees.

Drop a few frozen steak pieces into the hot oil in batches, and fry until golden brown on the outside, about 5 minutes total, turning once if necessary.  Drain on paper towels and keep warm in the oven until ready to serve

Great with ranch, cocktail sauce, or steak sauce for dipping.

Huckleberry Jam

UPDATED: Use Liquid Pectin, 3 oz pouches, instead of powdered.  Also, if you can food processor the raspberries really really well, you don't have to Victorio strainer them:

Tried and True, last used this recipe in 2009, worked great, just used up the last bottle in 2015.  This is the cooked type that is shelf stable.  The reason I don't do Huckleberry Jam as a freezer style jam is because the huckleberries have some kind of organic make-up that allows their deliciousness to sneak out of nearly any plastic container and taint all your frozen food.  One year when we stored the berries in the freezer in ziploc bags, we ate huckleberry flavored frozen pizza, huckleberry flavored mashed potatoes (because the taste had gotten into the frozen butter), etc. etc.

I use the WHOLE BERRY of the huckleberries, and puree in a food processor. However, I run the raspberries through the food processor really, really well which pulverizes  the seeds, works well.

Adding the raspberries does not diminish the huckleberry flavor, it merely calms it down and lets you stretch it out.  If you've ever picked wild huckleberries, you know you want those beauties to last because it took forever to get a gallon.

DO NOT DOUBLE UNLESS YOU HAVE A GIANT POT!  I mean giant.  My largest soup pot would boil over if this were doubled.

Also, I have not had great results in the canning method of tipping the jars upside down to seal, there is just not enough heat contained to create a reliable seal in half pint jars, so I just water bath them.


Huckleberry Jam
3 1/2 cups huckleberry puree
1 cup raspberry puree
(or enough of the above to make 4 1/2 cups together)
1 pouch liquid pectin, 3 oz.
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 tsp margarine or butter (to reduce boiling over)
6 cups sugar
Jars and lids

Makes 8-9 half-pints.  Wash bottles and sterilize in the dishwasher and place canning lids in heated  water on the stove over low heat until ready to process.  Start boiling water in your water bath canner.

Mix the two berry purees together in a large pot.  Add the pectin pouch, lemon juice, and butter or margarine, bring to a boil.  Add the sugar and bring to a boil again, stirring to mix well.  When at a full rolling boil, time it for 2 minutes then remove from heat.

Fill hot jars with jam mixture leaving 1/4" to 1/2" head space..  Process in water bath canner for ten minutes at full boil.  Ensure all jars have sealed and store for up to ten years.  

Chicken Dumpling Casserole

This is a great way to use up leftover rotisserie chicken or Albertson's Fried Chicken, if you can get 2-3 cups of meat off the bones.  Would be great for turkey leftovers as well.

Adapted from Chef in Training, but I tripled the sauce from the original and left the dumplings the same.

3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 onion, chopped
1- 1/4 cups chopped carrots
3/4 cup chopped celery (optional)
3 cans chicken broth (12 oz ea)
6-8 Tbsp flour
2.5-3 cups cooked chicken, chopped roughly
1-1/4 cups frozen peas
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Dumplings:
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/3 cup milk (more for higher altitudes)

In a large skillet, heat olive oil.  Add onion, carrot, and celery.  Cook until tender. Add 3 Tbsp flour and whisk in with 1/4 cup broth,  Slowly add the rest of the flour and broth, whisking to keep smooth.  Cook until thickened, more flour might be necessary, but don't overdo the thickener.  Add chicken and peas and heat through.  

Pour into a 13x9 dish.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a medium mixing bowl, add flour, baking powder, and salt.  Whisk together.  Add egg and milk and mix with a spoon or fork until just combined, adding more milk if necessary to bring ingredients together.  Drop by spoonfuls over the chicken  mixture.  (Makes about 8-10 dumplings).  Bake 15 minutes or until dumplings are golden brown and only slightly doughy inside.