Stuffed Peppers and Rice

This is a winner. All vegetarian, easy to make, pulls a punch, and yummy as all get-out. Takes but 30 minutes to prepare. Here we go. 

We cranked up the broiler and prepped a pot of rice.

In another pot we started heating a big can of plum tomatoes.

Then we halved 5 red peppers and cleaned them up and out.

Face down, we arranged them on a baking dish, smothered them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and stuck them into the hot oven. After 3 minutes we turned them for another 3 minutes, retrieved them, and turned the oven down to 425 F.

In the meantime we chopped up half an onion and 3 cloves of garlic. We sautéed them in a large frying pan. Onion first for a few minutes and the garlic for another.

A third of it went into the pot of tomatoes with a handful of fresh basil, a dash of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The rest stayed. We added a big package of fresh baby spinach, a good 10 oz. or so and let it wilt down.

Next we added 1 can of cannellini beans and 2 handful of freshly grated Parmesan, as well as,

 

the juice of one lemon.

Then we whizzed up the tomato sauce and placed it on the bottom of the baking dish. We filled the peppers with sliced small mozzarella balls and the spinach bean mixture. The whole thing got stuffed back into the oven for a few minutes until it all looked melted and ready to eat.

We served the rice with the peppers and sauce sprinkled all over. Yummo!

Pasta, Beans, and Tomatoes

While visiting Opa in Hamburg, Germany, we tried out a new recipe.

To start we got a pot of salted water going for some pasta. In addition we got 2 shallots, a handful of sage, a couple of handfuls tomatoes, 3 cloves of garlic, and the juice of 1 lemon.

Which we all chopped up.

Then we tossed 1 pound of pasta into the boiling water.

Next we sauteed the onion, garlic, and

the sage.

After a few minutes Lucy and Opa added the tomatoes and 1 can of white beans.

After everything was warm and tasty we pressed the lemon juice, drained the pasta and tossed it all together.

A little salt and pepper. Voila! Oh, we shredded Parmesan cheese to serve. Yummy. And please - do notice the heart-shaped pasta!

Fish, Broccoli, Potatoes, and Quark

Yup. Quark. That's straight out of our German cookbook and it tastes like spring. It's a delicious dairy dipping sauce for your taters. Oh yes! Somebody could make some real money selling this stuff stateside. You could have Quark-Counter-Franchises. You know. With Quark Merchandise and all.

But we digress. Back to the food at hand. We started by marinating 4 rock fish filets in a sauce of roughly 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 sliced cloves of garlic, the zest of 1 organic lemon, salt, and pepper.

We mixed it all through with our hands and stuck it into the fridge for an hour.

Then we washed and cut up a few handful of colorful potatoes of various sizes, covered them with water, added half a tablespoon of salt, brought them to a boil and cooked them for about 15 minutes till we were satisfied with their tenderness. 

At the same time we brought a second pot of water to a boil. We washed and cut 2 heads of broccoli into their florets and dropped them into the boiling water for only about 2 minutes, nibbling to ensure a good texture. We fished them out and prepped them with the juice of 1 lemon, salt, and pepper.

Last but not least we made the Quark. For this we mixed up Greek yogurt with half as much sour cream, olive oil, the juice of 1 lemon, salt, and pepper. Then we picked some herbs from the garden, namely chives and parsley, chopped them up, and added them to the mixture.

12 minutes before dinner time we got the marinated fish filets from the fridge and fried them in a pan from both sides till we liked them.

Mmmmmmmmmh! Yummy. Everybody was happy. No leftovers! 

Bloody Mary Beef - Bam!

COMFORT FOOD indeed! This was one scrumptious forklicking eat'em-up dinner for the history books. You could drown all your sorrows in this dish. Not withstanding the fact that we had to open the bar early for it. A pot roast brisket in a Bloody Mary sauce. We kid you not.

This one came straight out of the hallowed pages of Jamie Oliver's new cookbook Comfortfood and - BAM! - right into our new Christmas-present Emeril Cookware casserole. A cook-off of Titans, if you will, right in our kitchen.

We started with seasoning a 2 lb piece of  brisket with salt and pepper from all sides.

Then we cranked up the heat on that casserole dish and added a few gluggs of olive oil.

We placed the chunk of meat into the heat for a good 10 minutes until it was seared all around.

In the meantime we cranked the oven to 250F and roughly chopped up one big red onion and two sticks of celery.

We reduced the heat and gently cooked the veggies for another 10 minutes.

That gave us time to get sauced. At 11 a.m. mind you. We mixed up 3 1/2 cups of smoothly crushed uncooked tomato sauce (our best description for a "passata" substitute), the juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, a few drops of Tabasco sauce, 3 tablespoons vodka, and 1 tablespoon port.

All that we added to the meat and cranked up the heat to a boil.

We tied up a handful of rosemary sprigs with 2 fresh bay leaves.

The herbs got tossed into all that goodness and then ...

... we shoved it into the oven. For 5 1/2 hours. The aromas coming from the kitchen all day long made it, of course, hard to wait.

Half an hour before we were ready for dinner  we got a pot of water to a boil and tossed in a few handfuls of green beans, trimmed and halved, for just about 6 minutes. We drained them to serve.

We also boiled a pot worth of yellow potatoes, peeled and cut, until they were soft. We drained them as well and then mashed them up with about one cup of heavy cream, a few chunks of butter, salt, and freshly grated nutmeg. Oooooh, goodie.

When we brought the brisket back to daylight, we removed the herbs and pulled the meat apart with a fork.

This will be, no doubt, a holiday classic for years to come. Let's just say: New Years with all the good attentions can wait for a few days. This dinner was not for timid souls. It was made for eating.

Savoy Cabbage, Beef, and Pasta

That was about as quick and easy as it gets for some fork-licking toothsomeness.

While we got a pot of salted water going for 1 lb of shell pasta we browned 1 lb of beef with some olive oil; got it nice and crunchy and spiced it up with salt, pepper, and red pepper spice.

In the meantime we chopped up 1/2 big onion and sliced 1 head of savoy cabbage into wide strips.

When the meat was done, we added the onion for another minute or two.

We removed the beef, set it aside, and

sauted the cabbage with more olive oil, while loosening the fried beef bits. Then we added 1/2 cup of water and let it simmer for about 15 minutes with the lid on.

That gave us enough time to set the table, add the pasta to the boiling water, squeeze the juice from 1 lemon, and rummage for the creme fraiche.

When it was all done, we added it all together: the pasta, beef, cabbage, lemon juice. and a few chunks of creme fraiche and adjusted the taste with a little more salt.

It was absolutely delicious.

We found the recipe in a monthly magazine from Tim Mälzer (German star cook, Hamburg restaurant owner, and cook book author extraordinaire).

Pasta, Roasted Pepper, and Feta

Today Lucy was chopping, chucking, and chomping away at this Mediterranean dish. It sure was yummy.

First 2 cloves of garlic and half a red onion went under the knife while we got the water for our pasta going (Here are our nine nifty nuggets for nippy noodles).

Then we fished 4 roasted peppers out of a jar

and squeezed out the juice of 1 lemon.

Finally we got to a block of feta cheese and cut it all up.

When we chucked the pasta into the boiling water to cook, we heated up some oil in a small pot and softened the garlic and onion for a few minutes.

Then we added the peppers, 1 tablespoon of dried oregano, salt, and pepper and sauteed it for another few minutes.

Finally we whizzed it all up in a food processor; just a few seconds to keep some good chunks.

To serve we added the peppers to the pasta with the lemon juice, some extra virgin olive oil, and  a little of the cooking water from the pasta we reserved. Each plate was crowned with the feta cheese to our delight.