Stuffed Peppers!!! Yummy :)

One of my husband's favorite dish is stuffed peppers. I remember when we were dating I surprised him with that dish for dinner, I loved his face and reaction and also his hugs and kisses. I find it not so hard to make so now that we're married I make it for him once in a while, not to often because I want him to keep loving it the way he does.

Ingredients:

4 large bell peppers (any color)

1 lb lean (at least 80%) ground beef

2 tablespoons chopped onion

1 cup cooked rice

1 teaspoon salt

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce or more if you prefer

3/4 cup shredded cheese (the cheese you prefer)

Directions:

Cut thin slice from stem end of each bell pepper to remove top of pepper. Remove seeds and membranes; rinse peppers. If necessary, cut thin slice from bottom of each pepper so they stand up straight. In 4-quart Dutch oven, add enough water to cover peppers. Heat to boiling; add peppers. Cook about 2 minutes; drain.

In 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain. Stir in rice, salt, garlic and 1 cup of the tomato sauce; cook until hot.

Heat oven to 350°F.

Stuff peppers with beef mixture. Stand peppers upright in ungreased 8-inch square glass baking dish. Pour remaining tomato sauce over peppers.

Cover tightly with foil. Bake 10 minutes. Uncover and bake about 15 minutes longer or until peppers are tender. Sprinkle with cheese.

I have my own way of making this stuffed pepper. I skip the boiling part and this time I only used two peppers and cut them in half before putting the mixture in them. I cooked them for 35 minutes covered with foil paper and then sprinkled the cheese and cooked for another 20 minutes uncovered. My way seems to take longer but the peppers are not so soft, when you boil the peppers they come out softer and we don't like it that way

Aren't you glad is Friday!!!! Hope you have a great weekend. Enjoy!!!

New Grill Fever!!!! Excited :)

We bought our first new grill together and I am super excited!!!!
Before we had a grill I used to make burgers, steak, pork chops and so on inside the house on the stove top or in the oven (yes, I would smoke up the house)

Yesterday I was making pork chops so I got to use our grill and it was soooo good not to have that smell inside of the house, plus it tasted so much better.

I seasoned my pork chops like 4 hours earlier so they could soak up the flavor and when I put them in the grill I cooked them for no longer then 20 minutes and they were so juicy and tender. We ate them with a delicious BLT pasta salad.

Yes, this had bacon, lettuce and tomatoes!!! I also added salami, turkey breast lunch meat and of course the mayo to make it creamy and salt and pepper to taste. It was so good and a very nice side dish for the pork chops.

My husband enjoyed it so much and so did I. Of course we had a little piece of banana bread for dessert and my husband had two pieces with milk before we went to bed (that's how good that was). 

Hope you enjoy reading my blogs and looking at my pictures as I enjoy posting them for you. Happy Cooking!!!!

The Perfect Banana Bread

My husband is a banana eater and so am I, every week we go to the store and if we are out of bananas at the house we have to get some because he eats one every morning. This time we bought some that were still green but to our surprise they ripened much faster then we thought. My husband woke up the other day and went to go eat his banana like always but noticed it was to ripe for his taste so he went and told me about it. After thinking about what to do with them because I didn't want to throw them away or wasn't in the mood for a banana shake the thought hit me "why not make a banana bread", when I told him about that he was super excited and wanted me to make it the next day. My husband has a sweet tooth and I need to have sweet things for him to eat as desserts.

The Perfect Banana Bread

Ingredients:
3 ripe bananas (mashed)
1 stick of butter (melted)
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the butter mixture until smooth. Finally, fold in the sour cream, walnuts and bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

This bread is super rich and moist, my hubby said it was the best banana bread he has ever had so I'm sticking to this recipe. 

Have a very good day and happy cooking!!!!

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Doesn't this look good? I think it does and it was very good too. We had it last night while watching a heart warming movie "My Sister's Keeper", and it really warmed my heart and made me cry even though it wasn't the first time I'd seen the movie.

The spaghetti and meatballs I made them with regular spaghetti sauce, some onions, peppers, garlic, put my meatballs in the sauce and let them cook in the sauce (even though they were already cooked) so they can soak up the sauce flavor and cook the spaghetti like you normally do. You can mix your pasta in the sauce if you want or just do it like I did (shown in picture). We ate it with some salad and buttered biscuits. 

Well, I just wanted to show you my delicious dinner. Hope you are enjoying your weekend, today is my day off all duties because I am sooooo tired from everything I did this week from laundry to vacuuming the carpet and part of the stairs. But the good thing is that this is where the Lord wants me to be and I enjoy every minute of it. See you soon!!!

Used my Slow Cooker for The First Time and Loved it!!!!

Hi y'all, I'm so excited to say that I used my slow cooker for the first time, yes!!! the first time. I wanted to make split pea soup and was going to my parents so decided to start dinner at 8:00 am before I left to their house, it's a 50 min drive so whenever we go we stay a while.
Ok, so back to the slow cooker and dinner, LOL!!! I got all my ingredients ready and got my precious slow cooker out of the cabinet where it had been store since we got married. Started by emptying the bag of split peas, then put the ham in the bone I had left in my refrigerator, put onions, carrots, a little bit of cilantro, minced garlic and seasoning to taste, oh!!! and water of course; put the lid on and set it to cook on low.

This was awesome because I knew that when I got home at around 6:00 pm my soup was going to be ready. So it was, I only had to add a little bit more salt and make a side for it. I made to much soup that we ate Wednesday and Thursday, took some to a friend that just had surgery and still have some left overs but they will be frozen for another time.

Wednesday I was craving avocado and forgot to get it on my way home so I called my awesome husband and he brought it home; we ate our soup with avocado and whole wheat toasts. (I forgot to take a picture)
Thursday I made some cheese quesadillas to go with our soup and If I had avocado I would probably had had it again but I had told my hubby to buy just one, my mistake!!!

It probably doesn't look that great but believe me it was very good and the chunks of ham tasted so good in the soup. Next time we eat it I want to make cornbread, I know it would be amazing. 

Tonight it's a pasta night, spaghetti and meat balls one of my hubby's favorites.

Have an awesome day and a good Memorial Day weekend.  

Monday Cravings!!!! A Loaf of Love

Monday afternoon I found myself craving something sweet, but not just anything, I wanted some cake or some type of sweet bread. I really like the cinnamon taste and smell but my husband is not crazy about it so I hardly make anything with cinnamon for us unless I'm taking it to my mom's house where we are all eating from it and there won't be any left overs.
Well, today I really didn't care about the cinnamon thing, I wanted something sweet and didn't mind if it had cinnamon or not, if hubby liked it or not (a little selfish, right?) so I looked through my recipes and found this yummy cinnamon sugar bread. The best thing about it was that it was super easy to make and all the ingredients were in my pantry.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup white sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup white sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. 

In large bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt and 1 cup sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla and oil to flour mixture.

Stir until just moistened. Pour half of the batter into pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and 1/3 cup sugar (you can mix together cinnamon and sugar beforehand, I didn't though I just sprinkled away).

Cover with remaining batter. Top with more cinnamon/sugar if desired. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Wrap in foil and let sit overnight before slicing. I couldn't resist and cut 2 pieces so we could try it; then I covered it with a clean kitchen towel. 

Well, let me tell you that even though I sounded selfish at first, my husband really liked it and even called the bread "a loaf of love". You can imagine how excited I was and he even took some to work this morning.

We're going to Disney with the in-laws this weekend and I'm planning on making this again but with guava in the middle, because they for sure don't like cinnamon and my father in-law really likes guava pastry. I'll let you know how it goes. 

Have a great day and happy cooking!!!! 

Homemade Delicious Meatballs

Tuesday night I was craving some meatballs and started to look for a very good recipe on how to make them. I didn't want to buy the frozen bag at Walmart I wanted them to be made by me and have that homemade taste in them, plus not to mention that they would probably be healthier.
The first thing I did was season my meat and pour a little bit of lemon juice in it, I think it gives the meat a better flavor. After seasoning I started adding the ingredients that were going to help my meatballs stay together and not fall apart.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp whipping cream or milk
3/4 cup bread crumbs
1 cup grated parmesan cheese
seasoning to taste

Directions:

Season your meat with your favorite ingredients, then mix all the other ingredients in the meat. Start making your meatballs. Pretty simple!!!

Yes, as you can see this meatballs were going in the oven to get some heat at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes.

I had to try one before I put them in red sauce and let me tell you that it was very juicy and tender. I made around 28 meatballs but we were not going to it them all, so what I did was put some in a container and to the freezer they went. The rest of them I cooked them in red sauce like if we were going to eat them with pasta, but we weren't.

Oh boy!!!! they look so good. My house was filled with a awesome aroma that slapped my husband's face when he came through the door. Yesterday he put his briefcase in the usual place and went straight to wash his hands, like telling me "let's get it done".  

We had this awesome meatballs with rousted potatoes and a simple salad. Dinner was very good!!! My husband really liked them because they were very soft and juicy, and of course because they were in red sauce which is his favorite.

Enjoy your day and happy cooking!!!!