I love the idea of these stuffed peppers.  Orzo, spinach, tomatoes, cheese… Yummy!  And, they lived up to my expectations!  Delicious, flavorful and a huge hit with my husband and baby!

Now that I’ve made this dish and shared the recipe with a few friends, my head is spinning with possibilities for the future- using quinoa in the filling, theme-inspired stuffed peppers (think Mexican)… sounds like I have a great summer of experimenting ahead of me!

We ate the peppers with a side green salad, but, I think they could be served with meat as a side dish.

These peppers were SO delicious!  I had TONS of filling left over though… I’d say that you could cut it back by a third, or just have a couple of extra peppers on hand to stuff and bake.  I forgot to pick up fresh basil at the store, and my herb garden isn’t up and running yet, so I used a little dried basil, but the fresh basil would make this dish OUTSTANDING!

Orzo Stuffed Peppers
Recipe adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod
Serves 6

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1- 28 oz can diced tomatoes
4 cups vegetable broth
1-1/2 cups orzo
1/2 cup grated mozzarella, plus more for on top
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for on top
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
6 fresh red, orange or yellow peppers

1.  Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2.  In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.  Add onion and cook until tender, about 3 minutes.  Add garlic, and cook for two minutes.  Stir in the spinach and cook until wilted.  Remove from the heat.
3.  Pour the tomatoes into a large bowl and add the spinach mixture.
4.  Meanwhile, bring the vegetable broth to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Add the orzo, and cook for 5 minutes (you don’t want the orzo cooked all the way, because it will finish cooking in the oven).  Drain the orzo, saving the vegetable broth.
5.  Stir the orzo into the tomato mixture.  Stir in the cheese and season with salt and pepper.  Stir in the basil.
6.  Pour the vegetable broth into a 3-qt. baking dish.  Slice the tops off the peppers and remove the ribs and seeds.  If necessary, cut a very thin slice off the bottom of the pepper so it stands upright.
7.  Put the peppers in the dish, and spoon the orzo mixture into the peppers.  Cover the dish with foil and bake for 40-45 minutes.  Remove the foil, sprinkle the top of each pepper with cheese and continue baking until the cheese is golden, about 15 minutes.
8.  Remove from the oven, and let the peppers sit for 5 minutes.  Serve warm.

Enjoy!
The Hungry Teacher

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Fall is all around us.  It’s such a beautiful time of year- oranges, yellows and reds everywhere, crisp, cool days, trips to the pumpkin patch, and more rainy days.  I must confess, I secretly like the rain.  It gives you an excuse to curl up indoors, make some comfort food, have a cup of tea and read a book… or play with a baby!

I love my slow cooker!  It’s great to throw a plethora of ingredients in, turn it on and come home to a house that smells amazing and dinner made! This recipe involves cooking the sauce on the stove for a while, and then assembling the dish, so it’s a little more work than a stew or soup.  Don’t let that stop you!  This recipe is worth the extra couple of steps!

When I was working, I liked to prep my slow cooker meals the night before and store the crock in the fridge.  Then in the morning I just had to pull the crock out, plop it in the cooker, plug it in and go!  As a result, anything I tried with tortillas in it turned out soggy.  If you do want to make this the night before, make the sauce, grate the cheese and throw it all in the fridge.  You’ll have assemble the layers in the morning, but it’s not that difficult!

Use small, 6″ tortillas for this recipe.  They fit perfectly in the middle of my slow cooker, making the result look really good!  The tortillas did not end up soggy at all in the slow cooker, or reheated for lunch the next day!  I had so much extra sauce that I froze it- it’s basically a tex-mex flavoured chili.

Slow Cooker Enchiladas
Recipe adapted from Taste of Home
Serves 5-6

1 pound ground beef
1 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced green pepper
1 can (16 oz) pinto or kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (16 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes and red chilies (or whatever you can find!)
1/3 cup water
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
6-7 flour tortillas (6″)

In a large skillet, brown the ground beef, onion and green pepper until the beef is brown and the vegetables are tender.  Add the next 8 ingredients and bring to a boil.  Turn down the heat, cover the mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.

In a 5-6 qt slow cooker, layer about 3/4 cup beef mixture, one tortilla and about 1/3 cup of cheese.  Repeat layers until all ingredients are used up.  Cover and cook on low about 5-7 hours, or until heated through.  (Mine took 6 hours!)

Enjoy!
The Hungry Teacher

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Having a baby at home is a TON of fun!!  I am loving my life as a stay-at-home-mom (at least for this school year)!  But, as all parents know, the simple things in life aren’t always so simple anymore.  Take frying bacon, for instance.  When you don’t have a baby, it’s pretty simple to fry bacon.  Put it in the pan, turn it on, flip it occasionally and watch out for splatters!  But, if you have to hold a baby, or have one in the kitchen with you, it can be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to flip that bacon, or even get near it, for fear of having bacon grease splatter the baby!

I’ve heard of people baking bacon before.  I know this is not a new thing.  I’ve seen methods using a wire rack on a baking sheet, or the broiler pan… but those methods seem like they would involve A LOT of scrubbing after.  Maybe I’m lazy, but I don’t want to spend my time scrubbing a wire rack that has bacon fat and little crispy bacon pieces stuck to it!

So, I did some research, and I found the EASIEST, most convenient, and-believe it or not- the most tasty way to have perfectly cooked crispy bacon!

Here’s my method!  I found it on about.com and adapted it very slightly to suit me!

1.  Get a baking sheet and line it with aluminum foil (this makes clean up simple!)

2.  Lay out your bacon slices on the sheet.  It’s best if they’re not touching, as they’d cook together, but it’s ok to get as many on the sheet as you can WITHOUT them touching!

3.  Put your baking sheet in the cold oven, THEN turn it on to 400°.  Set your timer to 17 minutes.  Walk away.

4.  When the timer goes, check your bacon!  If it’s golden brown and cooked the way you like bacon, it’s done- if not, let it cook for a few minutes longer (I usually use thicker bacon slices and they take about 22 min).  Take it off of the baking sheet and place it on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the extra grease!

5.  Eat your bacon!

Perfectly cooked bacon! YUM! I know it looks greasy, but once it's been on the paper towels, it's not too greasy (about the same as frying it!)

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I love the spicy flavour of Indian food, and I wanted to bring it into my kitchen (actually onto my patio) at home!  All summer, we’ve been doing a lot of grilling… it’s so quick, easy and adds so much flavor to foods!

I found a recipe for Tandoori Chicken on allrecipes.com that I decided to try.  I must say, I know that this isn’t real Indian food.  I know that it doesn’t really even come close to something you’d eat in a restaurant.  BUT, it was still REALLY good!  The spices worked together well!  The chicken is marinated in yogurt, with the spices added in,  which made it so moist and flavorful!

I used bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs for maximum moistness and flavor.  You could easily adapt this recipe for boneless skinless chicken breasts (grill until they are no longer pink, about 5-8 minutes a side), or boneless skinless chicken thighs.  You could also bake the chicken in a 350º oven for about 20 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink and the juices run clear.

Barbecued Tandoori Chicken Thighs
Serves 4
Recipe adapted from www.allrecipes.com
1 cup (8 oz) plain yogurt
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
8 chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on)
olive oil spray

1.  In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt with the spices, garlic and ginger.
2.  Place the chicken in a large, resealable plastic bag.  Pour the marinade over the chicken.  Turn the bag over a few times to make sure that the chicken is coated with the marinade.  Place the bag in a bowl or on a plate, and marinate in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight, turning occasionally.
3.  Preheat the BBQ to medium.
4.  Remove the chicken from the bag, discard the marinade.  Wipe excess marinade off the chicken with a paper towel.  Spray with olive oil spray.
5.  Place the chicken over direct heat and grill for about 2 minutes on each side and you have nice grill marks on the chicken.  Move the chicken to indirect heat and finish cooking, about 15-20 minutes, or until the juices run clear.

Keep grilling while the weather’s still good!
The Hungry Teacher

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The end of summer is drawing near.  The deck off the back of our house faces west, which means that it’s really hot after the sun comes over the house.  But, at the end of summer, the sun moves behind the two trees, cooling down our deck enough to enjoy!  It’s so wonderful cooking at eating outside!

This salad is SO good!  It’s easy, healthy and light, but it still fills you up!  The type of sausage we use is a farmer sausage.  It’s a smoked sausage that is about 1-1/2″ in diameter.  I cut it in half length-wise, and then BBQ it like that.  You could use  a Kielbasa sausage, or really, any of your favorite sausages.

The original recipe calls for large red-skinned potatoes, sliced.  I really like baby red (or yellow) potatoes, so I used those instead.  I cut them in half or quarters, then par-boil them for about 8 minutes.  When the potatoes are boiled a bit before they are BBQ’d, I find they have a better texture- soft on the inside and crispy on the outside!

Also, the original recipe calls for a 1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped.  Both times I prepared this recipe, I forgot the jalapeno at the grocery store.  So, I used a decent squirt of Sriracha hot sauce!

I grilled the veggies for this meal in a grill basket.  It worked fantastic!  Nothing fell through the grates, and it was easy to keep all of the veggies moving.  It’s not necessary, you could place the veggies on the grill and turn them once.

The garlic is roasted on the BBQ.  Last time I made this recipe, I found I was out of aluminum foil, so instead of grilling the garlic, I cooked it in a small covered container in the oven for about 40 minutes.  Not ideal in the summer, but I was improvising!

Grilled Sausage and Potato Salad
Recipe adapted from Chatelaine Summer Cookbook
Serves 4

1 head garlic
2 lbs baby red potatoes, halved or quartered, depending on size
1 zucchini, sliced in thick rounds
1 yellow pepper, quartered, then each quarter cut in half
1 red onion, sliced in thick rounds
canola or olive oil
salt and pepper
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp Sriracha hot sauce
1/3 cup olive oil
1 farmer sausage
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil (optional)

Preheat BBQ to medium.  Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Put the potatoes in the boiling water, and cook for 8 minutes.  Drain.  Wrap the head of garlic in foil.

Combine the potatoes, zucchini, yellow pepper and onion in a large bowl.  Drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Toss to coat.

Whisk lemon juice with Dijon, hot sauce and some salt in a small bowl.  Gradually whisk in 1/3 cup oil.

BBQ the garlic.  Prick the sausage with a fork all over and barbecue, covered and turning occasionally, until cooked through, about 15 minutes.  Slice sausage.

Meanwhile, BBQ vegetables, turning often, until they are tender, and have  grill marks, about 5-7 minutes.  Add to a large bowl with the sausage.  Squeeze the garlic from the skins and mash, then whisk into the dressing.  Drizzle over the salad and toss.  Sprinkle with basil.

Enjoy this summer meal!
The Hungry Teacher

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