My biggest tip to anyone who take on cooking: Cook for an army, freeze half, eat a quarter that night for dinner and have left overs with a salad or fresh veggie on the side for two more days. By the 3rd day you're sick of it, and that's fine it's finished off. Two months later when you're running around like a crazy person you can just pull some out of the freezer, it's amazing quick and good for you!
So to recap I made the apps and the main on Sunday. It took half a day I fully admit but I did it by myself so if you have an extra set of hands or love to entertain you can do this. Since I explained how I timed everything yesterday and the recipe for the black bean burgers is here, I'm going to set you up with the stuffed pepper recipe today!
I made this dish to go along side the vegan black bean burgers. I wanted to have something for everyone so you can see and taste that a cleanse can be very satisfying regardless of your dietary choices. However I've said it before and I will say it forever, if you are going to eat meat make it organic. If you can only pick one thing to get organic make it your meats. Why, 10 eco-friendly reasons, and finally the Mayo Clinic for my science nerds.
Just after adding the tomatoes.
The Marinara:
This is a simple sauce to make, it's going with a full flavored food so unlike plain pasta this sauce is almost a condiment. Keep it simple to let the peppers shine!
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 large jar chopped tomatoes, or 2 Pomi packs
1 large jar tomato sauce, or 2 Pomi packs
1/2 tube tomato paste
1 handful fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste.
Brown the onions, add the garlic and the celery just to soften. You'll smell the garlic cooking, toss in the tomatoes and paste bring to a bubbling simmer, toss in the basil and let it cook as long as you can. It just get's better. Taste occasionally and salt and pepper as you go, this is the best part about being the cook, grab some of that amazing healthy bread and eat your way through the prep work!
-rant about tomatoes, the cans have BPA in the lining, this is an endocrine disruptor which means it screws with your hormones. If you're a dude and you like your sperm avoid BPA, if you're a chick and you don't want breast cancer avoid BPA. There are options: Muir Glen is totally BPA free. Eden Organic makes tomatoes in glass jars, and Pomi comes in a tetra-pak that is BPA free. This also goes for tomato paste, Trader Joe's make a tube of tomato paste that I've been assured by mgmt is 100% BPA free and it's a screw cap so if you don't use the whole thing you can stick it in the fridge for later!
Why don't we just buy ready made tomato sauce in a glass jar? It has sugar in it, you do NOT need that sugar. Why add calories and sugar to your body when you don't need it?!
Bonus points: when you cook acidic foods like tomatoes in cast iron it absorbs iron into your food, good for you and your body!
The Stuffing:
1lbs organic grass fed beef
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups bone stock
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 stalk celery, chopped
handful fresh parsley
handful fresh basil
1 tbs oregano
2 tsp cumin
pink salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste.
The peppers, I used 4 regular peppers and then I got about 15 different sized little orange, red and yellow peppers. As it was a dinner party with a few courses I thought it would be nice to have smaller ones for people, so you can go for seconds or have three with no guilt! Also they don't go to waste if some one doesn't finish theirs. I had about a 1/2 cup stuffing left after filling up all the peppers, there was the tray in the picture and a 1/2 sized Pyrex with the rest of the little guys.
Start the quinoa before you do anything else, even prep the other ingredients, this way it will be ready to toss in. I make mine in a rice cooker so the quinoa and the bone broth go in cooked quinoa comes out! (you can use anything even just plain water I use bone broth that I make which increases the mineral content of the quinoa and helps to heal the gut)
Brown the beef adding the onion and garlic around the halfway point
Add the celery and cook til it starts to soften
Add the dried herbs and spice, the salt and pepper. Let cook a few minutes so the flavors start to meld
Add the quinoa and stir all together, then stir in the fresh herbs and turn the heat off.
Let this hang out while you prep the peppers, cut the tops off de-seed the little guys and set aside.
Put most of the sauce in the bottom of the pan, grab a pepper and stuff it! Spoon a little sauce on top, put the peppers top back on, no naked peppers ;) and then place in the pan. Repeat!
You can slide these into the fridge here, or stick in the oven at 350 for around an hour. Check the tops to make sure they aren't burning. This is the easiest way.
Coconut Sweet Potato Mash:
-This was my one non fermented or pickled side dish
1 lbs sweet potatoes
1 cup home made thick coconut milk (sugar and preservative free!)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cinnamon
Bake the sweet potatoes at 350 until you can pierce easily with fork, about 40 minutes
peel the skin off (it's easy!) mash up with the coconut milk, salt and cinnamon.
You can put this in the fridge the night before like I did, then just pop it into the oven for about 20 minutes with the peppers and it's all ready at the same time for the party!
In conclusion:
at the party I simply turned the oven on, set all the condiments and sides on the table popped the peppers in the oven, sat down at the table and relaxed. 40 minutes later I put the sweet potatoes in and sat back down for 20 minutes. I got back up checked the oven, everything was doing well, I decided to keep the oven going since nothing was burning or even close I fired up the cast iron and put the burgers on, they take about 3 minutes a side, so 10 minutes later I was passing out the burgers. I turned the oven off, left the door closed and when we finished the burgers and zucchini spaghetti I got the peppers and sweet potatoes out, places bread on the racks, shut the door again. I served the peppers and potatoes, got the nice warm bread out, sat back down and ate like a pig! Desserts were in the fridge and freezer ready to go! YES, I enjoyed my own party it can be done!
about to dig in to part one!
Glorious!
With a black dress, a little tulle, a couple necklaces, and my trusty apron anything can be done!
No comments:
Post a Comment