Stuffed Peppers

I love peppers... except for the green ones. I've been wanting to make stuffed peppers for awhile but haven't found a recipe that sounds good me. So, doing like I do, I whipped up a lil something and they turned out FABULOUS! Yum.

Here's what in it:

1lb ground sausage

6 white button mushrooms, sliced

half white onion finely chopped

Uncle Ben's instant brown rice

1 tbsp garlic

1/3 c cream cheese

hot sauce

s&p

6 large bell peppers

6 slices of sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Brown sausage over medium heat, breaking up into tiny pieces. Cook mushrooms and onions with sausage. Cook rice, add to mixture. Add garlic, cream cheese, hot sauce, and lil bit of s&p. cook until cream cheese is melted and thoroughly mixed in. remove from heat.

Cut off tops off peppers and remove seeds. Fill peppers with sausage mixture. Place stuffed peppers in a muffin tin (the larger size works best) Bake for 15 minutes, top with cheddar cheese slices, remove from oven once cheese is melted

 Looking at these pictures is tempting me to have another...

Cauliflower Cod

This is one of those totally made up, I don't know what to make tonight, what am I in the mood for, threw some stuff together in my head, and it turned out better than I could have expected. This is a mixture of a recipe for mashed cauliflower, I found @ siriously delicious, a fabulous food blog I love to stalk, I mean follow, and a previous dish I had.

Cod can be kinda bland unless you deep fry it in beer batter and smother it with tartar sauce (I am from Wisconsin, and Friday night fish frys are a requirement for residency.) But trying to save my arteries from complete blockage, I whipped up this healthier baked dish. I apologize for no measurements, but that's how I do.

Oh, and one more comment about this dish, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and after serving this for my family a couple weeks ago, I was over at my brother's the other night and saw a fridge full of cauliflower...

me: "what's up with all the cauliflower?"

my sister-in-law with a guilty look on her face... "I was going to try and make that fish thing you made..."

me: BIG smile. I love it!

What it takes:

Cod, frozen or fresh

I used frozen, that's all they had at my grocery store, worked just fine

lemon

thyme, fresh or dried

salt and pepper

1 head of cauliflower, leaves discarded, florets broken up

cream cheese

wasabi paste

parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375

place cod on a cookie sheet or in a 9x9 baking dish. slice lemon, squeeze juice over fish and place pieces around fish, sprinkle with chopped thyme. add a lil salt and pepper. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until fish is thoroughly cooked and flakes easily.

Meanwhile...

Steam cauliflower florets in a double boiler or (here's a trick I learned) in a bowl with about an inch of water in the microwave for about 5 minutes, or until you can easily stab florets with a fork with no resistance.

In a medium size mixing bowl, combine the cauliflower, cream cheese (I used half a brick of Philly), a bit of S&P, and about 2tbsps of wasabi paste. Mix well until it resembles the consistency of mashed potatoes. If you have an immersion blender, it works great for this.

Once cod is baked, remove from oven and top with mashed cauliflower and parmesan cheese. Return to oven under the broiler (I put my on medium, because I otherwise I WOULD burn it). Broil until cheese is nice and golden brown, about 2-5 minutes.

OMG I want this right now!

*You might have some mashed cauliflower left over, I did, and that's fine because it's amazing all on its own.