While I’m a winter gal at heart – I love the snow. Cold. Frost. A brisk breeze on a gorgeous winter day… I do appreciate spring and summer because of the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables. Case in point – crisp and sweet green peppers on sale at the local Safeway 2/$1.00. A pretty good deal.

Normally I don’t eat any form of pepper. I don’t tolerate things from the nightshade family well at all, but there are times when the craving for a fresh green pepper overcomes better judgement and I simply have to eat it – knowing all the while that this momentary enjoyment will result in a case of terrible indigestion and a fair bit of suffering for the remainder of the night. Ah well, c’est la vie!

While I do enjoy the occasional fresh green pepper, I never eat onions. And I never ever ever eat dehydrated peppers and/or onions. That’s like death in an aromatic seasoning packet. Several years ago we were visiting here for the summer (prior to our relocation) and my mom made this delightful dip with sour cream and a vegetable soup packet. Though this was entirely gluten-free the heartburn and despair were all consuming and it wasn’t too long before I was telling my hubby that I should probably go to the hospital and have my stomach pumped. I thought I was going to die.

That lesson will stick with me for the rest of my life. Cherie cannot eat dehydrated onions, peppers, other veggies.

But back to this post – typically stuffed green peppers have a good amount of chopped or diced onion. Feel free to add them if you’d like them – I do all my cooking sans onion. And I sparingly use garlic as well – yet another nemesis of mine.

However, dishes can be gloriously yummy without these. To this particular dish I added some chopped fresh mushrooms. Yum! And cheese. We didn’t miss the savoriness of the onions a bit. And surprisingly, I didn’t really suffer too much after eating 1 1/2 entire peppers. Perhaps because it’s been around 9 months since I last enjoyed one. And they were so so good. Sweet, crisp, really fresh and summery.

I paired this with a cherry jello, fruit, marshmallow salad and we enjoyed our dinner while watching one of our favorite older movies: Men at Work. It was a delightful evening.

Stuffed Green Peppers
feeds 2-4, depending on appetite

4 large peppers
1 cup dry rice
2 cups water
1 pound ground beef
15 ounce tomato sauce
3-4 ounces chopped mushrooms
3 ounces shredded cheese, any kind
2 Tbl finely chopped fresh garlic
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Combine rice and water and cook until done.

In meantime, fry burger with garlic, salt and pepper until cooked through. Add mushrooms and fry 2 minutes longer. Drain grease and dump into large bowl.

Add rice, entire can of tomato sauce, and the cheese. Stir to mix and set aside.

Cut tops off green peppers and remove innards. Wash thoroughly and set in baking dish. Fill with meat/rice mixture and place tops back on top of filling.

Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 45 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 20-25 minutes or until peppers look somewhat wilted.

Traditional stuffed green pepper recipes require you to boil the peppers for several minutes before stuffing them. I don’t do this as they end up too soft and mushy by the end of the baking time. I prefer mine to still be a nice fresh green color and with a bit of a crunch. However, if you feel like you want yours a bit softer, boil the washed/gutted peppers for 3-5 minutes in rapidly boiling water before stuffing.

Enjoy!

Dinner tonight? Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches made with the leftover London Broil from last night combined with a sweet and crisp green pepper and some monterey cheese atop freshly baked bread. Delish!

Once I’d baked the bread (recipe and photos coming next week – for real!) and it had cooled enough to purchase, I cut 2 length-wise and set them in the oven to lightly toast.

A good philly cheesesteak has green peppers and onions but with my nightshade intolerance, I use very few in my kitchen. This meal didn’t include them. Saute thinly sliced peppers until soft and carmelized and then add your meat – in this case it was sliced leftover london broil that I sliced as thinly as possible with my thumb, erm, meat slicer. Don’t ask.

Tossed the meat in with the peppers for a quick (literally maybe 20-30 seconds) heat before topping with cheese and a lid so the cheese could melt and get all ooey and gooey over the top.

Then onto the bread with some mayo and stone ground mustard and voila! Easy and delicious sandwich that we scarfed down in record time. Leftovers have never been so good!

I love to BBQ. Up until last year when we moved into our condo with a small balcony, I was a gas grill gal. However, space is at a premium here and I made the decision to switch to a Webber charcoal grill. Amazing how circumstances can often force a decision that ends up being the absolute best course to follow. Cooking with charcoal is amazing. I wish I would have made this change years ago.

On Wednesday of this week I went to the local farmer’s market and purchased organic basil and spinach. Tonight while trying to decide what to pair with the london broil I was going to bbq, I had a thought. Shrimp and greens. Specifically, bbq’d shrimp and greens.

Several years back I purchased a handy dandy bbq roaster pan for my gas grill. I’ve used this to make kabobs without the actual kabob skewers. And it’s an excellent way to roast veggies over the flame/briquets. Tonight I used it to “saute” greens and shrimp over the charcoal.

I had on hand the deliciously fresh spinach, a few small bunches of basil, and a good amount of fresh parsley. After removing the stems and washing everything, I quickly ran them through my food processor – just enough to break them into smaller pieces. A few pulses was all it took.

These were then tossed with a few tablespoons of olive oil, the juice from 1/2 lemon, and a sprinkling of pink himalayan salt If you’ve never tried this salt you are truly missing out. It’s flat-out amazing. Next on my shopping list is a himalayan salt block. We purchased one of these for my father for Christmas and he loves it – uses it constantly.

After a quick thaw under cold water, I peeled the raw shrimp and tossed them with the greens before dumping the entire mess into my bbq roaster pan and set it on the grill with the lid on. This took 5-7 minutes to cook (my coals were cooled off a bit by this point) with a quick stir every few minutes so the shrimp could cook evenly.

Once the shrimp was just done, I served it. Delicious. The faint smoky aroma of the bbq came through and combined with the greens created quite the taste symphony. The shrimp was quite mellow and not as “shrimpy” as it’s capable of being. All in all, a pretty tasty experiment and one I’ll definitely repeat in the future. The perfect accompaniment to the london broil and baked potato. Yum.

If you’re going to make this, there really is no master recipe to follow. Use greens/herbs as desired and toss with oil/lemon/salt enough to provide some flavor without drowning everything in an oil slick. This would be great even without the shrimp and would likely be fabulous with scallops (I’m allergic to these so I’m just taking a wild guess) as well.

Enjoy!

Lately I’ve been using different flours for bread making using a gluten-free flour mix recipe by Annalise Roberts. The results have been well worth the expense of purchasing a variety of flours. I currently have some millet sourdough “souring” on the counter and the breads/rolls I’ve baked with the new flours have been nothing short of amazing.

Today I decided to try my hand at cinnamon rolls. I’ve made these dozens of times over the past 7 years and I just never seem to get where I want to be. The end result is almost always tough and dense and so far from what I was hoping for that I end up pitching them into the garbage out of despair.

Not today. These are actually very good! Tender and chewy and very much like what I remember cinnamon rolls being like back in my gluten days. I’m thrilled and excited to do more baking with these flours. The ideas are endless!

Here are the flours I’ve purchased (the gelatin is simply unflavored Knox Gelatine and can be found at any major grocery store in the baking aisle or near the Jellos):

Authentic Foods Superfine Brown Rice Flour
Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour/Starch
Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch
Bob’s Red Mill Millet Flour
Bob’s Red Mill Xanthan Gum

Gluten-Free Cinnamon Rolls
makes 1 dozen good size rolls

3 cups of Annalise Roberts gluten-free flour blend*
3/4 cup millet flour
2 Tbl xanthan gum
1 Tbl gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups + 2 Tbl warm milk
1/4 cup melted butter
2 large eggs

Filling
melted butter
brown sugar
cinnamon
raisins, nuts, etc if desired

*Flour Blend: 2 cups superfine brown rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour/starch.

Mix all dry ingredient and whisk to combine. Heat milk and butter until warm, not hot, and add eggs. Beat to combine and add to flour mixture.

Stir until thoroughly mixed and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

Flour a large surface with rice flour or the gluten-free flour blend and using floured hands, pat dough out until 1/2″ or so thick.

Spread with butter as desired (more butter equals more gooeyness – yum!) and sprinkle with brown sugar, cinnamon, and any other toppings desired.

Roll dough starting with long side away from you and roll towards you, rolling somewhat tightly. Cut into 2″ rounds and place in greased 13×9 pan.

Cover with plastic wrap and a moist baking towel and set aside in warm place (I heat oven to 175F and turn off approx 5 minutes ahead of time) to rise for 1 hour. Rolls should gain approx 50% in size.

Bake at 350F for 25-30 minutes, or until slightly browned and firm to touch. This flour doesn’t brown too much so you’re going to just see hints of browning when they’re finished.

Cool and frost as desired. I like to use cream cheese/powdered sugar/milk/vanilla and make a nice and creamy frosting.

Enjoy! If there are any left, reheat leftovers in microwave for 15-30 seconds or until warm. Fabulous!