Receipt: Damn Good Stuffed Peppers

Sometimes, cooking dinner just needs to be down and dirty. Easy. No frills. Healthy. Easy. Tasty. Did I mention easy?

This is one of those dishes. Stuffed peppers featuring uber-good-for-you quinoa, ground turkey and spinach are the epitome of healthy food. This recipe makes one super fresh dish – especially when paired with a homemade quick-whipped-up tomato sauce. And best of all – the filling could also be used as a vehicle to sneak in other veggies like carrots or peas or mushrooms into the diet of unsuspecting picky- eating diners. What more could you ask for?

Good cooks aren’t just craftsman – we’re crafty too.

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Damm Good Stuffed Peppers
6 bell peppers (I prefer red)
1 cup quinoa
1 pound ground turkey meat
½ large onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups tomato sauce (recipe follows or use a good quality jarred brand)
2 teaspoons hot sauce (I used Garlic Goodness from the Intensity Academy – highly recommended!)
3 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoons pepper
1/3 cup feta cheese
1 bag baby spinach, rinsed and dried
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
Parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add quinoa to 2 cups water or organic chicken broth. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer until water is gone, about 10-15 minutes.

Brown turkey meat in large skillet, breaking up with spoon or potato masher (try this – it really works well!) When brown and cooked, remove from pan with slotted spoon and set aside. Don’t drain pan.

While turkey meat is cooking, cut tops and bottoms off peppers and dice. Combine with chopped onion and garlic. Add to turkey cooking skillet (may need to add a bit of olive oil for cooking) and sauté until onion is soft and slightly brown. Add tomato sauce, hot sauce, Worcestershire, salt and pepper. Mix in spinach and sauté until spinach cooks down. Combine the above with cooked turkey, quinoa, pine nuts and feta.

Remove the inside of the peppers, including seeds. Portion the mixture into each of the peppers and set in 9 X 12 baking dish. Top each with feta cheese. Bake for 30 minutes.

Quickie Marinara Sauce (totally worth the time to make this)
2 (14.5 oz) cans organic stewed tomatoes OR 3 cups, give or take, oven roasted tomatoes
1 (6 oz) can organic tomato paste
big handful fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, smashed
fresh oregano and/or basil
1 tsp salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup onion, finely diced
½ cup dry white wine

In food processor, add tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.

In large saucepan over medium heat, sauté onion in olive oil until translucent. Add tomato mixture and wine. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Receipt: Chicken Florentine Lasagna

Most folks go on vacation to get away from cooking. Not me.

When we pack up the family roadster in the summertime and head out for our week at the beach, the car contains at least one of my preferred cooking vessels and my favorite knives. We vacation with folks I love whom I don’t get to see very often – cooking a couple of meals for the gang lets me take care of some of my favorite people. It’s taken me a couple of years to find the balance between preparing too much food, planning too many meals and spending too much time in the kitchen (even in my bathing suit with a wine cooler at my side, it does get a little old. And hot.)

This was the first year I didn’t make a couple of my beach “signature” dishes – pans of lasagna. That’s good crowd food – easy to prepare in advance, makes great leftovers and kid-friendly. I usually make it two ways – the traditional, with meat-laden tomato sauce, béchamel and ricotta; and a change up with chicken, white sauce, and spinach.

I was asked by every person that crossed the threshold of our house if we were going to have lasagna night – and to a person, each face took on a look of sadness when I said no. While the traditional lasagna is good, they were all hoping that the chicken version was hiding in the fridge, waiting for some oven time.

It’s not a complicated recipe. And it uses both my favorite time saving ingredient – the deli roasted chicken – and one of my least favorite – cream of anything soup. But it’s worth it. Try it. You’ll see.

FYI: The spinach can be left out if you’ve got picky eaters. Then it would be Chicken Alfredo Lasagna. But I digress…

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Chicken Florentine Lasagna
8 ounce pkg lasagne noodles
3 cups half-and-half
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup grated Parmesan
¼ cup butter
1 tbsp olive oil
½ large onion
4 cloves garlic
1 roasted chicken, skinned, deboned and shredded
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 package frozen spinach, thawed
3 cups italian blend cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook lasagne noodles for 8-10 minutes. Do not overcook. 

In saucepan over low heat, mix half & half, soup, Parmesan and butter. Simmer until well blended, stirring often.

 Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat. Sauté onions and garlic until tender; mix in chicken and cook until heated through.

 Lightly coat bottom of 9 x 13 baking dish with enough cream sauce to coat. Layer 1/3 lasagna noodles, 1/2 cup ricotta, 1/2 spinach, 1/2 chicken mixture and 1 cup mozzarella. Top with 1/2 cream sauce then repeat layers. Place remaining noodles on top. Spread with rest of sauce.

 Bake one hour until brown and bubbly. Top with rest of mozzarella and finish baking until cheese melted and lightly browned.

Receipt: French Onion Soup

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a “What the hell?” attitude.
~ Julia Child

It was my Saturday afternoon ritual. Make a sandwich. Grab a cold drink. Go to my room. Shut the door. Turn on the TV -- a little black and while model. Change the channel to our local PBS station. Settle back into my black bean bag chair. And wait for that jaunty theme music.

I was twelve years old.

And Julia Child was my idol.

It was French Chef time.

Life itself is the proper binge.
~ Julia Child

I don’t know where I got my intense, passionate, almost obsessive love of cooking. My paternal Grandma was a damn good cook; my maternal Nana wasn’t bad. My mom cooked, but it wasn't her passion.

But me -- I not only inherited the cooking gene from my ancestors, I got bit by the culinary bug as well. My earliest memory is of my four-year-old self being lifted up to take a look at the Thanksgiving turkey roasting in the oven.

And I did time with a couple of kids cookbooks -- pouring over the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls like it was the Magna Carta, devising menus and mentally tinkering with recipes.

For some reason, my mother had a subscription to Bon Appétit magazine. Every month when the latest issue arrived in the mailbox, it spent about two days on the family room coffee table, then disappeared into my room. I cut recipes out like a girl possessed, treating them as lovingly as I did my pin-up poster boys from Tiger Beat. I’m not sure what I was thinking, as at that point in my life (and my family’s taste buds), there was no way I would be making 40 Cloves of Garlic Chicken, but I had the recipe. Just in case.

I don’t remember what brought me to my Saturday afternoons with Julia. Chances are I read about the programming lineup in TV Guide and just tuned in one day. Instantly hooked.

I watched Julia, with her non-intimidating style and deceptive skill, move ‘round her TV kitchen and create dishes the likes of which I’d never seen before in my home kitchen. Salade niçoise. Chocolate Mousse. Veal Prince Orloff. Which, of course, I knew about, thanks to a favorite episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Never use water unless you have to! I'm going to use vermouth!
~ Julia Child

So imagine my delight when under the Christmas tree in December ‘77, I found this.




Between that and the other fab book I received that year (Scarlett Fever - The Ultimate Pictorial Treasury of Gone With the Wind) I spent all of the 25th and most of the 26th reading until my eyes grew heavy with exhaustion.

As I read though my new treasure, my mind pondered all the possibilities. What would be the first thing I would make under Julia’s guidance and following her directions... which recipe would be the one that I would use as my jumping off point into the world of serious cooking.

The answer soon became apparent: French onion soup.

Onion soup sustains. The process of making it is somewhat like the process of learning to love. It requires commitment, extraordinary effort, time, and will make you cry.
~ Ronni Lundy

The recipe looked simple enough. Not many ingredients to bog down a new cook. Nothing too unusual to intimidate. And it was something that everyone in my immediate family might dig.

And so I began a ritual that I would continue to this day. I’ve been making Julia’s French onion soup for thirty years. Happily. When I was single and living on my own, it was my family’s traditional Christmas Eve dinner -- everyone would come to whatever hovel I was living in at the time for soup, salad, wine and conversation after the Christmas Eve church service. These days, I make it when the air turns cool and the palette craves a bit of familiar sophistication.

My cooking technique has improved over the years, as have the tools of my trade. And I think the soup I make now reflects the maturity of its creator. But honestly, there was something so perfectly delicious about those first batches of soup my idealistic teenage hands made. I infused the hearty melange with my youthful enthusiasm and zest. It in turn gave me confidence and a sense of self not known before. I wooed men with my soup. I cared for ailing friends with my soup. I helped to ease the grieving process of loved ones with my soup.

I've done a bit of reading over the years about Julia and her life and accomplishments. The most interesting tidbit -- and the one I shall remember always -- was what she had for her last meal the night before she passed away.

French onion soup.

Bon Appétit!

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Julia’s Soupe à l'oignon, pretty much as is, The French Chef Cookbook
3 Tb. butter
1 Tb. olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. or about 6 cups thinly sliced yellow onions
1 t. salt
1/2 t. sugar
3 Tb. flour
6 cups organic beef broth
1 c. red wine
1 bay leaf
1/2 t. rubbed sage
salt & pepper


Melt the butter with the oil in a dutch oven and add the sliced onions and stir up to coat. Cover pan and cook over moderately low heat until translucent, about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover pan, turn up heat to medium-high and add salt and sugar. Sugar, by caramelizing, helps onions to brown. Stirring frequently, cook for another 20-30 minutes until the onions are deep brown and jam-like. Meanwhile, heat broth to a simmer in a separate pan.

Lower heat to moderate and add flour to onions. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring continuously, to brown the flour. Remove from heat and whisk in one cup of the hot broth. Add the rest of the broth, wine, bay leaf and sage, and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 30-40 minutes, seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

Soupe à l'oignon gratinée (which really is the only way to eat it)
The soup!
1 baguette
olive oil
1 1/2 c. grated Gruyère/Emmentaler/Baby Swiss and Parmesan cheese, mixed

Cut bread into slices about 1 inch thick, paint lightly with olive oil and arrange in one layer on baking sheet. Place in middle of preheated 325-degree oven for 15-20 minutes until beginning to brown lightly; turn and brown lightly on other side for 15-20 minutes. These are called croûtes.

Ladle soup into heat-proof bowls and top with a couple of the croûtes and grated cheese. Broil until bubbly on top. Serve.

Warning: hot melted cheese is akin to culinary napalm -- if not careful, you could burn the hell out of the inside of your mouth and render your taste buds helpless for a short period of time. Eat wisely. It’s worth it.

Dining with one's friends and beloved family is certainly one of life's primal and most innocent delights, one that is both soul-satisfying and eternal.
~ Julia Child

Receipt: Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Torta

Too often in cooking people fail to make the distinction between time consuming and difficult. There is a difference.
~ Nigella Lawson

Call it potluck. Call it covered dish. Call it a BYOD (Bring Your Own Dish.) We’ve all been involved with or invited to an event where everyone is asked to bring a little something-something for others to nosh on.

My go-to dish on these occasions -- Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Torta. Been making it for nearly a decade, thanks to seeing it in Bon Appétit when on a hunt for something to take to a Christmas party.

Oh Em Gee, is it good. And others agree with this, she says modestly. It really is yummy. Don't think about the fat content, though, while you're enjoying it. It kills the garlic buzz.

My galpal in Georiga loves this so much that I don’t even think about going on our annual three-family week-long vacation to Captiva without making this. She might disown me if I didn't. She’s even eaten this for breakfast. I've seen her do it. Seriously.

Periodically, someone will ask me for the recipe. Which I’m more than happy to share -- I’m not one to bogart stuff like this.

However, once the askee has the recipe in her hot little hands (not being sexist -- it’s always women that have this reaction) and has a chance to look it over, invariably I get one of the two following responses:

“Wow. This looks complicated.”

OR

“Wow. I don’t make anything that has this many ingredients.”

Please. Just because a recipe has more than five ingredients does not a challenge make. Frankly, the most difficult thing for me in culinary land has just four ingredients: flour, shortening, water and salt. The elusive pie crust. Can't make a decent one to save my life. But that's another tale for another day.

Now, I will admit that I enjoy spending time in the kitchen (cooking, not cleaning... ugh) more than the average bear. But I’ve been making this dish since my culinary skills were in their embryonic stage. It’s not that tough. It's basically all about the assembly. Seriously.

And the payoff. So worth it. Guaranteed.

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Not-That-Hard-I-Promise Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Torta

(adapted just a bit from Bon Appétit's orignal recipe)

• 4 cloves garlic
• 1-1/2 cups basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 4 cups cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 1-1/3 cups sun-dried tomatoes, oil packed & drained
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• non-stick vegetable oil spray
• fresh basil sprigs, garnish
• toasted pine nuts, garnish
• crackers or toasted baguette slices

Finely chop garlic in food processor. Add basil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, oil and lemon juice. Process until well blended. Add 1 cup (8 oz) cream cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesean cheese. Using on/off turns, process until just blended. Transfer pesto to medium bowl.

Coarsely chop sun-dried tomatoes in processor. Add tomato paste and process until mixture is almost smooth. Add 1 cup (8 oz) cup cream cheese and blend well.

Using electric mixer, beat 2 cups cream cheese and butter in large bowl until fluffy. Season with salt and pepper.

Spray 6-cup souffle dish with non-stick spray. Line with plastic wrap, extending plastic over sides. Spread 3/4 cream cheese butter mixture evenly over bottom of prepared dish. Top with half of tomato mixture, then 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture, then half of pesto mixture. Repeat layering with 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture, remaining tomato mixture, 1/2 cup cream cheese-butter mixture and remaining pesto. Top with remaining cream cheese-butter mixture. Cover and chill at least 8 hours.

Invert torta onto serving platter. Peel off plastic. Garnish with basil leaves and toasted pine nuts. Serve with crackers or baguette slices.