Spicy green peppers and pineapple stir fry

This sounds easy.  The title said red peppers, but I didn’t see any.  Like many foodie bloggers, she probably uses what’s on hand. Now that I’m getting good at making brown rice, I’ll try this.  I don’t have  a wok, but that won’t matter.  And mine won’t be very spicy.  Recipe at From Scratch.  I added a handful of dried cranberries to freshly cooked green beans the other night, and t was quite good. I think raisins and cranberries make a nice addition to vegetable.s

Ingredients: 1 cup cooked brown rice

2 green bell peppers

1 can pineapple chunks

1/2 white onion

1 handful of raisins

1 cup cooked shrimp (optional)

1 egg

olive oil for cooking

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

2 tsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. sugar

2 tsp. whole wheat flour

Drain your can of pineapple and set the fruit aside. In a small sauce pan mix together the pineapple juice, soy sauce, red pepper, sugar and flour. Cook over medium heat until ingredients are fully combined, set aside. Chop up the onion and green peppers. Drizzle some olive oil in a large wok and heat, saute onions. Once onions begin to brown add in the shrimp, pineapple and green peppers. Add in your fully cooked rice. Once rice has had a chance to warm move all wok contents to one side, crack and add in your egg. As it cooks work it into your rice and other ingredients. Now pour your sauce over the entire thing and add raisins. Allow to cook for another 15-20 minutes and serve.

Sautéed Vegetables with Cashews

This looked awfully good when it came via e-mail from The World's Healthiest Foods. The vegetables are several types of peppers, onions and snow peas cooked in a little chicken broth tossed with cashews and a little home made dressing. Love that sort of stuff for lunch. But. When I looked up the nutritional values I found this: 372.28 calories per serving, of which 266.17 calories are from fat. The culprit seems to be the cashews--1 oz. of cashews is 156 calories, of which 112 are from fat. And I don't know about you, but I've NEVER eaten just one ounce of cashews--I'd be better off not to have them in the house where I'd pass the pantry and reach for a handful about 3 p.m. when I get the munchies.

I looked up red, green and yellow peppers, and sliced up you’d have about 25 calories, then grill in olive oil add another 40, the grilled onions for another 35; snow peas about 40. So it looks like if you removed the cashews, you still have a delicious vegetable dish, very colorful, with few fat calories. I'd probably skip the dressing too, because it disguises the flavor of the vegetables.

Bella Stuffed Banana Peppers

The September/October 2010 issue of Lake Erie Living is out with an article about the Lakeside/Marblehead Fall Festival (p.50) on October 9, and a recipe for stuffed banana peppers. I don't think I'd ever used many banana peppers until my son began growing them in his garden, and he's so successful, I decided I needed a recipe, and this one looks pretty simple.

Bella Stuffed Banana Peppers
(Serves 6)
8 to 10 large locally grown (from Phil's garden for me) sweet banana peppers, tops removed and seeds scooped out
1 pound mild or hot Italian sausage, sauteed and drained
1/2 cup freshly shredded provolone cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese (plus extra for top of casserole) [salty Italian cheese, suitable primarily for grating, made from sheep milk--I had to look it up]
2 or 3 eggs
1/2 cup seasoned Italian bread crumbs
2 cups homemade tomato sauce (he makes that too)
1/4 cup olive oil

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix sausage, provolone, pecorino Romano, eggs and bread crumbs together in a bowl (mixture should be moist). Stuff into cavity of banana peppers. Lay peppers flat in a large 13" x 9" casserole dish. Pour tomato sauce over peppers. Drizzle with the olive oil and grate a generous amount of pecorino Romano on top. Cover with foil and bake about 1 hour, until peppers are soft. Serve with a green salad and good crusty bread (he makes that, too) to soak up the sauce.

This recipe is on p. 27, along with "Grilled summer peaches with pound cake." I've never grilled pound cake, but sounds good, too!