Crockpot Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers

Last weekend, I wore MC Hammer pants.  I will vouch (for myself) that I never thought I'd see the day that happened.  But my group workout class had a 90's theme!  Of course I had to buy the drop-crotch pants to match.  I would say "ugh" right about now because I'm over myself, but since wearing them this past weekend, I've developed a fondness for those pants.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to wear them in public.  As in, it won't be a part of a costume.  Thankfully they're black and not some fugly patterned mess.  So there's that silver lining, right?  Someone out there is understanding my thoughts.  I'm sure of it.


Here's something that easier to understand: the amazing-ness of making Mexican stuffed peppers in a crockpot.  I've made stuffed peppers once before but I refused to revisit it again because it was such a chore to make those at the time.  Fast forward to today, hand me a crockpot, and I'm back in business!


Lately, I've been obsessed with Mexican food.  This should not be a surprise, because cheese is my kryptonite.  I would like to make it known that I can eat Mexican food at any time.  If there is a Mexican food throwdown, I'm there.  Needless to say, you may be seeing a few Mexican-inspired recipes from me in the near future.  I have to say that these pepper turned out to be mighty tasty.  The combination of the meat, rice, vegetables, and sauce made this an excellent dinner option for me the other night.

And cheese. And sour cream.  They just get me.

Zucchini Feta Quiche

No, seriously though...can Spring just show up already?

Ever since I returned from the Caribbean last week (Can we talk about how amazing Grand Cayman is?), I've realized precisely how tired I am of heavy coats, layered sweaters, and winter boots.  I need these seasons to get a move on right now.

Can a quiche hurry things up?  Let's investigate.  I have zucchini and feta at the ready, along with some eggs and a pie crust.  Of course I have the cheese too.  Why are you even asking?

A quiche is my go-to food when I'm feeling lazy and still want something light, nutritious and tasty.  Sometimes I love to trash it up with many things, but sometime I keep it simple.  This time I chose simplicity.  I also chose to add a dose of freshly grated zucchinis to help old man winter realize it's time to peace out.  The warm weather is coming soon.  I can feel it!

Sausage and Mushroom Risotto

I should probably be embarrassed about this, but I'm not.  I must admit that I've had a box of arborio rice (aka risotto rice) staring at me from my pantry since I moved into my new apartment.  To put this into perspective, I moved in back in April 2013...

I'm probably in the minority when I say that I think risotto is one of the easiest things to make.  I feel as if I overlook it so often in my attempt to whip up other dishes or treats that I feel I haven't "done" yet.  Risotto is simple and delicious and cheesy and I-just-need-to-reach-for-that-darn-box!

When I opened the cupboard door for the umpteenth time and saw the risotto again, I finally decided that it was time for action.  Even though I have an endless list of risotto recipes bookmarked online and torn out of magazines, I had recently been assigned Heather's blog, Join Us, Pull Up A Chair, this month's Secret Recipe Club.  There are so many tasty recipes on this site that you really must do yourself a favor and check it out!  While I tried to give each recipe a fair shot at being "the one" for this month, I have to say that I definitely honed in on the Baked Sausage and Mushroom Risotto recipe.  Come on!  You know I feel some kind of way about sausage.  Once we add in the mushrooms, cheese, and risotto, this was a clear winner in my eyes.

Another disclaimer here: I didn't bake the risotto like the original recipe recommended.  I wanted to, but I ran out of time and just quickly finished it on the stovetop.  I did use all the ingredients though, so I'm about 100% sure the taste was spot on, which is a good thing because this risotto was insanely delicious!  All I can say is that you must give this is a shot if you even only halfway love this combination of ingredients.  Don't walk to your kitchen.  Run!

Bahamian Fire Engine

Over the past year or so, I've received several positive emails or comments from my relocated Bahamian people about the Bahamian recipes that I post here.  When you grow up on a small island with a culture that predominantly revolves around food, and then you end up moving elsewhere, sometimes you just crave the comfort of a home-cooked meal.  Depending on where you move and with whom, sometimes that's just not possible.  Another thing I've come to realize is that, dang, sometimes I want Bahamian food too, but I don't actually know how to make it.  That's when we turn to the internet.

So, I recently decided to profile a new series on the blog.  I'm planning on featuring Bahamian recipes once in a while so that:

1) I can actually document my family's recipes (Let's be honest.  We know most of these recipes have no written instructions anywhere!); and

2) My fellow Bahamians and I can have a reference to recreate these dishes in the future.

I've begun to request that my family provide me with some recipes that I can include on the blog and they are working overtime to put measurements to some of our favorite meals. In the meantime, I looked to the Bahamian calendar to help me create a fire engine breakfast dish.  First of all, yes, our national calendar contains recipes.  Second of all, you're probably wondering what fire engine is.  Fire engine is a very popular breakfast dish in the Bahamas.  It's composed of steamed corned beef and vegetables, then served over rice or grits.  It sounds strange but I swear it's delicious.

Garlic Lime Salmon

I feel as if it's been forever since I've made a Secret Recipe Club post!  We took a break for the holidays and now we're back!

Since I've been blissfully working from home for the past few weeks (wait, can we ever be "blissfully working"? .... hmmmm), I've been trying to incorporate more seafood into my diet.  I rarely make seafood because I am not interested in eating frozen seafood.  While I have no objection to cooking salmon that was raw and was then frozen, it's completely another thing to eat salmon that has already been seared, roasted, baked, whatever, and then frozen.  Yuck.

So here we are, with me making salmon for dinner while actually living at home.

This month, I was excited to be assigned Angela's blog for the SRC, which is appropriately named Angela's Kitchen.  Angela's blog is chock full of recipes just waiting to be made.  She is also an expert on gluten- and dairy-free recipes.  From all the recipes I looked at, I decided to make a salmon dish (of course!) but I would also suggest popping over and having a look-see at Angela's site.  There's so much to learn and her information would be especially helpful to those of you living gluten- and dairy-free.

Slow Cooker Chili

I've been trying to incorporate more soups and stews into my regular diet.  It hasn't been working.  I'm slightly disappointed that this is my first real chili of the season, but at least I finally got around to making it!

And....it's here just in time for the Superbowl!  This year, the big game is being held in my backyard.  Sorta.  The Broncos and Seahawks are coming to play at MetLife Stadium this weekend, which is about a 20 minute train ride from me.  This should be awesome.  It's not.  First of all, my team, the Steelers (the best team, really), isn't playing.  However, more importantly, I live right next to the train station which will take people from Hoboken to NYC and also from Hoboken to the stadium.  This town is going to be a drunken mess and I'm going to have a front row seat.  I won't want to leave my apartment for the rest of the week.

Now that I have this chili, I really won't have to.  I can kick back and relax at home with a comforting bowl of food.  I can invite friends over to partake in this, or I can try to escape the crowds and take my chili on the road to a friend's place.  I'm not sure yet what's going to end up happening this Sunday, but I can assure you that I will be taking cover and avoiding all the Superbowl madness outside.  I will be nice and toasty and filled with chili no matter where I am.

Sweet Potato & Onion Quiche

 
I've been working from home for a few weeks now and I'm trying to figure out a few things, such as 1) exactly how does one grocery shop for an entire week at a time?, 2) How does one plan out meals for oneself for more than 2-3 days in a row?, and 3) How does one organize the refrigerator so that I can use up all this fresh food I seem to be purchasing?

As you can see, I have questions.  I think this quiche is the answer.  OK, it's not really going to answer any of the questions I have above, but while I am (still) pondering these questions, I can make this quiche and eat it too.

I really felt the need to rekindle my love affair with the quiche.  Recently, my attention has been diverted by pumpkin-flavored things and unnecessarily sweet desserts, aka "the Holidays".  Clearly, I need to refocus.  Quiches are the perfect easy meal: breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  I also eat it quite often as a snack.  Love doesn't discriminate.

Curried Chickpeas with Spinach

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a safe and festive entrance to 2014.

You all knew I was going to fall victim to the peer pressure, didn't you?  It's time to crank out the healthy recipes for all those folks heading to the gym.  January is the standard month for everyone to descend up any gym within sight.  I am just cringing thinking of signing up for my workouts for the next few weeks.

Oh well, since I'm sure all of the classes I want to take will be full, I'm going to focus on eating better.  Here I am bringing you more vegetables.  I can't seem to stop myself, so I'm just embracing this.

My love of hummus extends from my love of garbanzo beans, which is...interesting, considering that I hate most beans.  The only beans I care to eat are these and edamame.  Everything else can just back it up.  These beans happen to be curried, though.  That is a new phase I'm entering as well.  I love curry.  I think I get that from my momma.  Oh, and there's spinach and tomato sauce.

Wow, I'm sure you're excited to see what I'm going to bring you in 2014!  We're kicking it off with garbanzo beans and I'm talking about spinach and curry...  I'm pretty sure I'm losing followers as I type this.  Yup yup.  I promise I'm going to make it up to you with some decadent goodies soon, but for right now I've thrown together some curry, chickpeas, and spinach juuuuust for you.

By the way, this recipe is super quick, so you can get back to working on your fitness in no time!

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Sometimes I just get the urge to make and eat a lot of vegetables.  I have to say that I'm pretty happy about these urges right about now.  Every other day, I seem to find myself eating three- to four-course meals, then inhaling a pile of desserts.  Just to make sure they're good, ya know.  I'm doing some self-appointed quality control testing.

While I love hanging out with the family and trying to figure out how food much I can actually fit into my stomach, it's time to give myself a reality check.  Christmas is over and I really need to reign things in.  It's probably a wise idea to kickstart this healthy eating with stuffed squash.  Only good things can come from roasting acorn squash, and then stuffing it with brown rice, cranberries, and pecans.

In all honesty, this is my first time making a dish using acorn squash and I'm pretty proud of how this turned out.  The recipe is so easy that it would be quite difficult for me to fail at making this.  Since I'm pretty much still nursing a food hangover (4 days later, oof), simplicity is the name of my game.

Jamaican Beef Patty Flatbread

I don't even know how this thing happened.

My work schedule was a bit wonky last week, and at the last minute I ended up working from home the entire week.  On or about Tuesday, I realized that I didn't have enough real food to sustain me much longer.  I had to go to the grocery store.  But, for various reasons (most of which had to do with something called "laziness"), I never made it.

And so began the process of existing on coffee, Babybel miniature cheese, and turkey wraps from the restaurant across the street.  Yeah.  Low points.

So I did what I do best: I raided my freezer.  In it, I found 1/2 lb of ground beef, two flatbreads, and frozen peas.  Things were not looking up...until I found a recipe that would let me use all of this good stuff.

OK, I tweaked a few things, but are you surprised about that?  You shouldn't be.

Growing up in the Bahamas, I have been eating Jamaican beef patties as a snack since I was a child.  They will always take me back to the time of carefree living and remind me of being back in Nassau.  I figured I should probably take a stab at my own version of this recipe.

Crockpot Sausage and Peppers

Hi friends! Before anyone says anything, yes, I know this is Thanksgiving week, but no...

No, I do not have a turkey dish for you.

No, I do not have Thanksgiving sides for you.

No, I do not have anything related to pumpkin for you.

But what I do happen to have is some sausage and peppers.  Eat it.  It's good for you.

I mean....I don't even know what to tell you about this.  I've been developing a love of sweet peppers over the past few months. Working in Philadelphia all the time is wearing me down! I've always loved sausage, so when I saw this recipe, I was all over it. Wait, I get to use my crockpot too? I'm done.

So um, by the way, I popped some avocado on top of this because I maybe forgot to throw in the cheese.  WHAT?!?!? Maybe Philly hasn't gotten their hooks in me just yet.  I threw this sausage and pepper mix on top of some egg noodles, but I wouldn't be mad if you chose to toast some buns and get your sandwich on.

Beer Caramelized Mushroom & Onion Tart

 

I want to eat all the mushroom and onion things!  This tart allows me to do just that.  I used to be really into tarts, and by being "really into tarts", that means that I used to make them a whole lot more than I do now.  I really enjoyed that they were so easy to whip and so I could have a quick and tasty meal.  In the past week, I have had numerous work obligations, a surprise conference to attend, a 24-hour trip down to Baltimore and back, and an emergency stop to the dentist to check out a filling.  So, all I really want is a hot freaking lunch to get me through each day.

Enter Sid from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking.  I was assigned Sid's blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club, and it was pretty difficult to choose which recipe I wanted to make.  However, after I saw the mushroom and caramelized onion tart, I was sold.  In fact, I was so excited that I decided to pour beer in the pan of veggies as well.  Sorry, but...beer.  Hope you don't mind, Sid!

Oh, and there's goat cheese involved in this business as well.  You're welcome.

Bubble Up Enchiladas

I'm really into colorful food photos right now.  I don't know why, but I think it has something to do with me being in a "Mexican food" phase lately.  I'm trying to branch out to other food genres and I think I'm getting there, but in the meantime...colorful photos of Mexican food.  Oooohhhh.

Speaking of this, why isn't there a season for Mexican food?  Granted, I eat Mexican food all the time so I could care less whether or not there is a season for this.  Still, I think this cuisine needs its own spotlight.  Just my personal rant.  As per usual.

On another note, remember when I made that Bubble Up Pizza that I still can't get out of my mind?  Yeah, it was insane.  I had made a last-minute decision to only make a half batch of that pizza, which meant that I still had another roll of refrigerated biscuit dough on hand.  Since I am a food blogger and clearly cannot make the same dish more than once (in most cases), I decided to put a different spin on my next "bubble up" dish.

That's when I found it.  My new holy grail Mexican dish: Bubble Up Enchiladas.  I completely heart enchiladas but I made them once before and I have never made them again.  They were completely wonderful and tasty, but the time it took to make the filling, fill and roll the enchiladas, then bake them really took away from my "lounge on the couch with a mug of spiked coffee" time.  And that's important too, you know!

This bubble up pizza variation was simple, quick, and did not interfere with any quality coffee and food magazine time that I had set aside for myself.  If you're interested (hint: you should be), check out the recipe below and let this become one of your new, quick weeknight meals.

Mexican Mac n' Cheese

Let's take a pause on all this pumpkin stuff. I can only handle so much. (PS - That's totally not true.) What is totally true is that I have too many other recipes that I want to make as well. Plus, let's face it, I'm going to bore my taste buds to death pretty soon.  Even though there's only one pumpkin recipe on my blog this season, that doesn't account for all the pumpkin coffees, lattes, sauces, and desserts that I've been eating on the side. I prefer not to talk about it. This may be the reason my jeans are having a hard time buttoning these days. Ugh. Yup, let's not talk about it.

I want to show you this Mexican Mac and Cheese that I found on SeattleDee's blog, On the Move-In The Galley. OTM-In The Galley was my assigned blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club. SeattleDee has a ton of tasty recipes on her site, but I didn't have enough time to make them all, so I decided to go with the recipe that "spoke" to me the most. Enter this dish.

Surprisingly, I have only one other mac and cheese recipe on this blog. I think it's because in the Bahamas we tend to bake our macaroni (It is "macaroni", not "mac and cheese".) and it has a slightly different texture than other mac and cheeses that I've come into contact with over the past few years. So I don't know what it is about this recipe but it pretty much drew me in and I knew I had to make it.

Please note that this recipe will not help me fit into my jeans this season. I'm a self-sabotager. But I am going to be a well-fed self-sabotager.

Crab Ravioli with Pumpkin Alfredo Sauce

I know you want it, so here it is.  Pumpkin.  I am finally falling victim this season's pumpkin bug.  You get some pumpkin! You get some pumpkin!  Everybody gets pumpkin!

Throwback shout out to Oprah.

Hmmm....ok, I'm done.

Just so we're clear, Oprah has nothing to do with this pasta dish that I made for you.  I'm just really getting into the swing of fall.  The Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts staff know me on sight as I stroll up to the counter to order some variation of a pumpkin-flavored drink.  So it's time to bring Fall into my apartment and onto my plate.  Let's get down with this pumpkin sauce today.

I bought this prepared crab ravioli a while ago, but it's been hanging out in my freezer for a few weeks.  I'm currently in a "clean all the things out of my freezer" mode, so obviously, this needs to be made.  Since I'm also in an "add pumpkin to all the things" mode, my two worlds collided in the form of this cheesy, savory dish.

Easy Chickpea Curry

I know you were creeping on this blog to look for some pumpkin recipes.  I understand.  That's pretty much what I've been doing in my spare time too.  I have been bookmarking pumpkin recipes like it's my j-o-b.  And I'm not sorry about it.  I'm already racing against time.  I saw Christmas candles and scents popping up in my local Bath and Body Works!  Shut it down right now!  I'm living for fall, people!  I've been scooping up as many Bath and Body Works fall candles as humanly possible.  (I love you Yankee Candle, but $28 for a candle?  Ain't nobody got time for that!  B&BW is seriously stepping up their candle game!)

On top of that, I've sipped on my first ever pumpkin pie martini.  I've also picked up my first can of pureed pumpkin from Trader Joe's.  (PS - My cashier at Trader Joe's claims there's a pumpkin body butter coming out this season.  I'm currently stalking the store.  Don't call the cops yet please.)

Anyhow, this whole rant is basically to tell you that I haven't given up on fall.  Most definitely not! I'm obsessed with it, but even the most obsessive person has to take a breather once in a while.  This is my breather.

It's an easy chickpea curry that I adapted from Jessica's little (totally not little) blog.  I pulled this dish together pretty quickly for lunch and it was seriously so easy.  I had the Pandora Marvin Gaye station going in the background.  Just so you know, singing off-key at the top of your lungs really makes time fly by.  I should be embarrassed by myself.  I'm not.

Bubble Up Pizza

Can we discuss how I've never heard of bubble up pizza before?  Where was I?  I can tell you where I wasn't.  I wasn't scarfing down this deliciousness.  That's what I wasn't doing.

Since football season is back in full swing, I could totally envision myself making this for friends who come over to watch the big game.  That is, if my friends would actually come to my apartment to watch the game.  Hint: they won't.  Why?  I happen to be living large in the land of the early 2000's and I am still hanging on to my 27" box television.  No HD in sight.  You may think that this troubles me.  It doesn't.  In fact, I still love my box television.  As long as it works I'm never getting rid of it  However, it does eliminate me as a host for the big game.  So I guess I'll have to make this wonderful pizza and take it to someone else's place for a good time.

This recipe came to me via Julie over at Little Bit of Everything.  I initially considered creating a spectacular fall (aka pumpkin) recipe for this month's Secret Recipe Club,  but when I came across this pizza I just knew that it was "the one".  And how could I resist anything which involves those refrigerated biscuits?  I ate those things countless times as a kid so of course I couldn't pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make pizza out of them.

Crockpot Pulled Chicken Cheesesteak

Why is the name of this dish so complicated?  Should it be Crockpot Pulled Chicken Cheesesteak?  Or should it be Crockpot Cheesesteak Pulled Chicken?  You have no idea how many times I switched these words around.  You probably don't care.

This is the kind of day it's been for me, folks.  It also happens to be only 8pm and all I wanna do is go to sleep.  Oof.

In other news: I'm heading to Nashville in 2 days!  Yes, you heard me.  I'm visiting the south in August.  What of it?  I've wanted to visit Nashville for some time now and when my friend said, out of the blue, that she also wanted to go, we got down to planning this thing.

Don't you worry, I'm going to take lots of pictures.  And since my birthday happens to be *ahem* tomorrow, we will have lots of celebratory pics from this trip. I'll make sure to weed out any inappropriate ones and only post the relevant pictures.  Just kidding!  Totally not kidding. Warning: I'm planning on eating my way through Nashville so that post will be a good time.

I kind of got off track.  Does it matter?  Probably not.  I'm still going to post the recipe for this delicious pulled chicken cheesesteak business, or whatever we happen to be calling it now.

Caprese Chicken

Fun fact: I sort of don't like tomatoes.  Let me break this down.  Through some trial and error, I've realized that what I don't actually like is the taste and texture of tomato seeds.  Their texture reminds me of Jell-O, which I absolutely hate.  As in, to the point of gagging, hate.  Ok, no talk of gagging on this food blog.  But honestly, I actually really like the rest of the tomato, aka the tomato flesh.  Yes, I'm totally taking this post to an awkward place.

Moving on...I never really thought of pulling all my major faves together into one dish.  I think chicken is a fantastically quick protein to whip up for a weeknight dinner.  I absolutely adore basil.  (Homemade basil pesto? Stop it!)  And let's not even start with the mozzarella cheese.

I've played with variations of this combination before by making Basil Pesto Chicken and a Caprese Salad.  But now, we are taking this business to another level.  Let's combine it all!  And then we drizzle the whole she-bang with balsamic sauce.  Just in case you didn't think we were serious enough.

If you didn't know before, now you know.

Korean Beef Bowl

I used to go to the gym Friday evenings to catch up on the past week with my girlfriends.  And of course we burned as many calories as possible so we could promptly justify the ensuing late night dinner and glass (or glasses) of vino.  However, in the past several months, I changed gyms and also got down with some foot surgeries.  Needless to say, I didn't get to see my girls as often as I used to.

A few weeks ago, we coordinated our schedules so we could once again relive our Friday night glory.  We decided on Korean food and ended up at one of our favorite spots in K-town (Koreatown) in NYC.  I never know what to order when faced with pages of foreign food, so once I spotted a ground beef dish called bulgogi, I figured I'd just roll with that.  Little did I know that this bulgogi would be so tasty.  This was the beginning of something beautiful.

Approximately two days later, I discovered a new-to-me blog, Damn Delicious.  This blog is amazing!  The first recipe that popped up was for a Korean Beef Bowl.  Essentially this was a stripped down (aka easy) version of the Korean bulgogi dish.  Clearly this finding was fate and I should just listen to the universe and make this happen.  So I did.  And it was fabulous, as it was meant to be.  This Korean rice bowl was a seriously close substitute for the Korean bulgogi, just without all the time and energy required to make the authentic dish.  Sometimes a girl just has to eat quickly.

But...if you're not into this Korean ground beef situation, then perhaps you would like to partake in some of this Deconstructed Wonton Soup.  Find your own lane and speed on down it.