Peppers, Onions and Eggs for Dinner

Veggies atop the chicken at the restaurant.

Over this past weekend, my friend Tom and I went to a local Mexican restaurant we hadn't been to in a while. I decided to try something I'd never tried before and went with the Pollo Salvadoreno - Grilled Chicken El Salvador style. I had imagined that the veggies would be cooked down more than they were, but they were still mostly crispy. If you've ever had fajitas, you know what they looked like, but they were cooked LESS than that. I was disappointed, but still ate the chicken, which was delicious. The veggies smelled fantastic, so I brought them home along with the leftover rice, beans, chips and salsa. 

I decided on Thursday that I was going to use those peppers and onions. Perfectly good food that deserved being eaten, even if it was in a different way than originally served. But, I didn't want to thaw out any meat. I wanted something fast and easy. 

Peppers and eggs are very popular in our area, especially where there are a lot of Italians. I'm sorry to say that I refused to ever try them until after my mother passed away five years ago. She would have been thrilled to see me eat them. I discovered I liked them quite a bit. Yes, these peppers came with onions, too, but they were sweet onions, which I'll eat cooked. I don't like onions that have a sharp bite to them and I'll never ever eat an onion raw. So, I tossed the

Shortly after pouring the eggs in the pan.

Salvadoreno vegetables in the pan with some olive oil and began to pan grill them to where I like eating them. While that was happening, I got out seven eggs and put them in a bowl with some milk and scrambled them. 

Once the veggies were cooked (some might call these burnt - I prefer "blackened"), I poured the scrambled eggs over them and began cooking everything together. I took two pictures of the eggs - one while they were setting up and one after I'd stirred them and they were done. There is also a photo from the restaurant showing the veggies as they were before I decided to cook them again. 

After stirring with a wooden spoon until they were just set.

Add two slices of some fantastic artisan whole grain bread from Trader Joe's, toasted and buttered, and I can't deny that I had a pleasurable meal. 

Have you ever brought leftovers home and turned them into something else?

Originally published to my Bubblews account.

Pasta Stuffed Peppers!

OK, here I am again, not all that long after my last post. Can you believe it? Well, I actually did something worthy of posting right away and I'm here to tell about it.

I had made the macaroni with the pasta sauce that I used the roasted tomatoes for. There was quite a bit of it and Deb wouldn't eat any of it. I didn't want to eat it all myself, so I thought maybe I could use it for stuffing the peppers she'd brought home that needed to be used. I went online and found that plenty of other people had used pasta to stuff peppers, so I found one that used elbow macaroni like I did in order to know what temperature to set the oven and how long to bake them.

Not my peppers. These are from  Tummy Temptations.

Before I stuffed the peppers, though, I diced up a couple snack sized summer sausages to add meaty flavor to the mix and opened a can of corn, drained it and added that as well. I cut the tops off of five peppers and removed the seeds and veins, got out my square baking dish and placed the peppers in it. Then I stuffed them with the macaroni mixture (that now had diced summer sausage and corn). We had a small block of cheese that I grated a portion of and topped each pepper with a blend of ketchup, dried mustard and chili powder followed by some grated Cheddar Jack cheese. I followed the baking instructions for the one recipe I'd found and in an hour, I had five lovely stuffed peppers waiting to be eaten.

My friend Tom really liked them - he had two. My daughter had one, which surprised me since she had just eaten a hoagie. I haven't had one yet because she had brought me some broccoli soup when she came home, so I was no longer hungry. But, there are still two peppers left and they're now in the freezer waiting to be reheated and eaten. I'm very happy with the results, although next time I'll plan ahead and put pasta sauce around all the peppers so they are more "saucy". I like peppers that way.

Although I'm not providing any specific instructions for this meal, it wouldn't be hard for you to do. Just make up your pasta and then prepare your peppers, stuff them and bake for 30 minutes covered with foil and 25-30 more minutes without foil, all at 350 degrees. I did put a little water in the dish around the peppers to keep them from drying out, but I'd like to put pasta sauce in the next time. If your family doesn't care much for rice like my daughter doesn't, this might just be the recipe for you.

I had one pepper I wasn't able to use for stuffing, so I cut it up along with the "lids" from the five I did use and froze it for future use. This seems to be a good way to use up leftover pasta if you also happen to have peppers.

Tomato Seedlings are Popping Their Little Heads Up

Despite Baby Cat's previous disruptive efforts (knocking the entire tray of planted seeds to the floor and playing in the dirt), as of this moment (late Friday night) I have six (of 12) seeds beginning to sprout. Not sure why there are no peppers beginning to appear since they were all planted at the same time, but they haven't gone beyond their germination times, so there's still a chance.

Bell Pepper plants -Wikimedia Commons, Forest & Kim Starr, Creative Commons

I planted them in the cardboard bases of egg cartons. Twelve nice and neat potting pots filled with potting soil, just enough to get the roots started. The great thing is that I can plant the entire egg cup, soil & seedling, without having to disrupt the growing process. The paper-based cup/carton is biodegradable and will dissolve into the soil as the roots push their way through. I love it!! (I will have to cut the cup sections apart so that I plant individual holders rather than an entire dozen of tomatoes and peppers, of course.)

Tomato Seedlings -Wikimedia Commons, user cdw victoria

We use lots of tomatoes, green peppers and onions in our recipes. (The meatloaf I made tonight has peppers, onions and salsa in it.) I'd also like to have one zucchini plant and one eggplant plant (is that redundant?) and I know Deb wants watermelons; but if she wants them, she's going to do the digging. I'm going to put mine in containers because that's easier for me to take care of.


The only thing I need to go dig a hole for, much to my dismay, is my rose bush. I'll probably go out this weekend and dig right about sundown to plant it. I know I'll regret it. I  just know it. Every other time I've tried to have a rose bush, something has happened. But, I love rose bushes. They're low maintenance (as far as I'm concerned) and high pleasure (I love seeing them in full bloom). I haven't figured out yet where to get a lilac bush, but I would love to have one of them as well. I'll be happy with the rose bush.


Caturday's Images

A Bowlful of Baby Cat

Stop with the flash already!!

Cowgirl Tiki