Stuffed Bell Peppers

When Corrie (my sister in law) came to visit for my graduation she was wonderful and cooked a bunch of meals for us! She was showing me a bit of what she was doing and how things worked, which actually is part of what got me ready to start my cooking experiments! Anyways, one of the dishes she made was this stuffed bell pepper recipe, which was absolutely delicious! So she sent me the recipe and allowed me to share it on here and hopefully I will make her proud! :) It really did not require that many ingredients and was a relatively cheaper meal to make!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients
6 large green bell peppers
¼ cup olive oil
½ cup chopped onion
3/4 lb ground beef
¾ cup grated parmesan cheese
2 cups cooked rice
3 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp red wine (optional – I did not use this)
¾ cups tomato sauce (Recipe provided below)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Trim the stems and remove the seeds from the peppers and rinse
In a skillet heat oil and add onion and sauté until onions are transparent
Add the meat and stir until it is fully cooked (not red at all)
Stir in the remaining ingredients except the tomato sauce and let it cool
Stuff the peppers with the cooled mix and place on a greased baking dish
Pour the tomato sauce around and on the peppers
Bake until peppers are tender (30-40 minutes)
Baste occasionally with the sauce

The sauce recipe I used is actually the same from the  Pesto Stuffed Pasta Shells, but I will post it again so it's just in the same place as this recipe. 

Herbed Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (yum!)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1 (14.5 oz) can no salt added whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon no salt added tomato paste
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Method:
Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until hot. Add onion and garlic; cook, stirring constantly, 4 minutes or until tender. Add basil, oregano, and fennel seeds; cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. Add tomatoes, and remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes. Serve with pasta. Yield: 2 1/4 cups

Nutrition per tablespoon:
Calories: 5     Carbs: 0.9 g     Cholesterol: 0 mg     Fat: 0.1 g (Saturated fat: 0g)     Protein: 0.2 g    Sodium: 10mg

Here are the peppers before I put them in the oven. I also put tomato sauce on top of each one but I wanted to show what the filling looked like!

And here is the final product! I didn't actually take a picture of how I served them because everyone was just so hungry. But let me tell you, this recipe is wonderful! I highly recommend it to anyone!! It was easy to make, and delicious to eat, I will definitely be making this one again, it's a crowd pleaser! So thank you Corrie for this tasty recipe and I can't wait to try some of your others!

Falafels

Alon (a friend from Israel) translated and sent me a recipe to make falafels, which if you have ever had a good falafel, you know they are delicious! I was going to make it for my dad's birthday but we ended up going out instead so yesterday was the day for falafels! It ended up being a little bit of a panicked cooking experience but I now know how to do it properly haha. I went to the grocery store and everything I bought was basically considered a "specialty food" so if you are wanting to eat for cheap, this is not the route to go! However if you are wanting to eat yummy, I recommend this! :)

Ingredients:
1 lb chickpeas not canned
1 cup chopped parsley
1 cup chopped cilantro
4-5 mashed garlic cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 large onion cut in quarters
1 teaspoon baking powder
frying oil canola is best

Method:
dry the chickpeas very well
grind chickpeas and onion in a meat grinder
add everything except baking powder and stir
put aside for 30 min
add baking powder and mix very well
either cook now, or if not ready, place in refrigerator and take out 20 minutes before cooking
heat up the oil very high and then lower a bit
make small ping pong size balls and deep fry until it becomes a dark
golden brown
take out and dry the oil


First of all I should say that I doubled the recipe because I figured my parents and I love falafels so having plenty of leftovers was a good thing. So I was having trouble with the consistency of the mixture, it wasn't sticking to itself well enough to hold shape in the ping pong sized balls, so I wasn't sure what to do but I decided to try adding flour to them.That did help a little but not much, I just ended up getting a small ice cream scoop and making the balls that way, not ideal, I definitely need to figure out what went wrong there! Another problem I had with this one is I have never deep fried anything in my life! So I wasn't sure how hot to get the oil, or how low to cook it on, or how long to leave them in...can you say disaster? Well so I guessed on all of this and I kind of guessed wrong. I had the oil too hot when I cooked them so they turned a dark brown almost black on the outside instead of a golden brown (oops!) and the inside did not cook as much as it should have. Of course I didn't know this until I was all done cooking.

Here are the falafels right after they were cooked, you can see how some are darker than others. I tried to fix my mistake as I was going but next time will be much better!

I decided to cut one of the falafels in half so you could see the inside! It's very green and very delicious!! Yum!

So here is everything I served with the falafels, I did kind of a falafel buffet so everyone could put what they wanted on it. I had the falafels, salad, hummus, tzatziki sauce, feta cheese, tihini sauce, and pita bread. Can I just say that this mean was well worth the cost even though I didn't cook it properly!

Here is my falafel!! It filled me up! Overall a very good meal, and it made a ton! I have leftovers for more meals which is always a plus! Thanks Alon for such a great recipe! I definitely have a lot to learn/improve on for this though.