Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers

I came across this recipe and it sounded not only super easy, but quite tasty as well so I figured I would test it out! Let me tell you, it is very hard to mess up and it is absolutely delicious!!  Here is the original recipe from Spark people: recipe.

Ingredients

2 green bell peppers
8 slices of mozzarella cheese
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup diced mushrooms (I used button)
100 grams of Roast Beef sandwich meat (yes, plain ol' sandwich meat)
2 Tbs of unsalted butter or margarine
3 cloves garlic

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 400. Slice peppers in half lengthwise, remove ribs and seeds. Spray with PAM and roast in oven for 15 minutes.

2)Saute mushrooms and onions over medium heat with butter. Saute until onions and mushroom are nice and caramelized. About 15 minutes.

3) Cut up the roast beef into small pieces and add to the skillet with the minced garlic. (I find if you put the garlic in with the onions and mushrooms, it ends up overcooking). Let it cook for a few minutes. 

4) Line the peppers with mozzarella and stuff with the roast beef mixture. 

5) Broil for 1-2 minutes until the cheese becomes deliciously bubbly! 

6) ENJOY!!!!

Baked Spaghetti

Hello hello!

A few people were asking for the recipe of my baked spaghetti, so I figured I would just make a blog post about it especially since I haven't made a post in quite a while!

I got the recipe off of the rhodes bread website, but I have never heard of rhodes bread so I tweaked the recipe a bit.

Ingredients

• 1 package of crescent rolls
• 6 oz spaghetti, cooked
• 1 cup thick spaghetti sauce
• 8 oz mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/2 –inch cubes (I used shredded cheese)
• 1 egg white
• Parmesan cheese
• Parsley flakes
• Pinch of garlic powder

1) First and foremost cook the spaghetti as per the directions on the packages, or if you wanted to get really fancy...you could make your own spaghetti noodles! Maybe next weekend I will feel a bit more adventurous, but tonight I had a hungry pregnant woman so I used packaged spaghetti.

2) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

3) Drain spaghetti and mix in spaghetti sauce in with the spaghetti.  I turned off the element and put the spaghetti back on the stove so it could warm the sauce up a bit.  

4) Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray OR coat with butter. 

5) Roll out crescent roll dough on cookie sheet while making sure the seems are joined.

6) Put the spaghetti in the middle of the dough.

7) Add cheese and cut slits along the dough.  To wrap it, start from one side and alternate folding left over right.  It is simliar to braiding hair, except with two parts instead of three. 

8) Brush with an egg white, sprinkle parmesan, parsley and garlic powder. 

9) I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. 

10) Remove from oven, let cool and stuff your face!!

Note: There are a number of things you can do with this recipe.  I think the next time I make it, I am going to add Italian sausage and mushrooms to the sauce.  Super easy to get creative with this recipe! 

If crescent rolls are not available to you, any sort of puff pastry would work too! 

Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks

Apparently I was good this year because I got a stand mixer for Christmas!  I decided to take it for a spin last night (see what I did there?) and make this recipe I found on Pinterest called Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks.  It started out great, but then when it came time to put the things into the oven I realised that my new cookie sheet didn't fit.  I then tried to transfer it onto a different cookie sheet, but it ended up turning into a log as opposed to sticks.

Here is the recipe for the bread sticks starting with the dough (taken from Lauren's Latest):

Basic Pizza Dough
yield: 2-12 inch pizzas, approximately 1 lb. of dough

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey {or sugar}
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
3 cups bread flour {give or take 1/2 cup…depending on the heat & humidity}

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, preferably that of a stand mixer, stir yeast and honey into warm water. Sit for 5-10 minutes or until bubbles form and mixture starts to foam. This tells you that the yeast is alive and kicking. Pour in salt, oil and half the flour and mix.

Once that flour is incorporated, start adding flour in bit by bit until you get the pizza dough to the consistency you want: slightly tacky, but when you touch it it doesn’t stick to your hands.

Once you reach this stage, turn the mixer on high to knead for 6 minutes. Turn a timer on and walk away! Resist the temptation to stop earlier than 6 minutes! That seems to be the magical number. It should look something like this when it’s done!

The dough should be smooth and easy to work with. And the bowl should be clean!

Lightly grease the bowl & the dough so it doesn’t dry out, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1-2 hours. That’s it!

Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks
yield: 1- 12 inch pie

Ingredients:
1/2 recipe Fail-Proof Pizza Dough
2 tablespoons softened salted butter
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese {use the real stuff!}
1/4 pound grated mozzarella cheese
{salt & pepper, if desired}

Directions:
Preheat oven to 500 degrees with pizza stone inside. 

Mix butter and garlic in a small bowl and set aside.

Spread pizza dough out into a 12-inch circle on parchment paper. (I just used a regular cookie sheet)

Spread the butter and garlic mixture over dough and top with parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. Top with a light sprinkling of salt and pepper, if desired. 

Bake 9-10 minutes or until bubbly and golden. Remove from oven and cool 1-2 minutes before cutting. Serve hot, with marinara.

The shape it was supposed to be.  This was prior to transferring it to the other cookie sheet.

After it came out of the over.  It actually tasted as good as it looks!

Monday Monday

Meatless Monday, Meatless Monday, MEATLESS MONDAY!!

So alas it is Monday, which means that it is meatless Monday!  Last night I made some Butternut Squash Soup.  

2 small butternut squash
3 yellow potatoes
2 ambrosia apples
2 generous tablespoons of curry powder
5 cups of chicken broth

• Peel and cube the butternut squash, potatoes and apples.
• Heat up chicken stock
• Put all ingredients in chicken broth
• I let everything simmer for about an hour. 
• Once cooked, I blended the soup in my blender.

I don't think I realised how much soup this would make because I seriously ended up with a lot!  I wont go hungry for at least a month haha!  Good thing it turned out pretty good!  Before I enjoyed a bowl I added some plain yogurt!

No mess chocolate fudge

Since the holiday season is fast approaching, I decided to do some "baking" tonight.  I call it "baking" because there was actually no baking involved.  I got the recipe from my Mum and she makes it pretty much every year during the holidays!  The only issue I have with the recipe itself is that it is in mL and mg as opposed to cups.  No big deal, just meant I had to actually read the packages.

Here is the recipe:

NO MESS CHOCOLATE FUDGE

350 grams chocolate chips

300 ml can sweetened condensed milk

300 ml icing sugar

5 ml vanilla

pinch of salt

125 ml chopped nuts (optional)

paper cups

1. Put all the ingredients in a glass or plastic bowl.
2. Stir them together till they are well mixed.
3. Put the bowl with the fudge mixture into microwave, on high for 2 min.
4. Take the bowl out of the microwave and stir the mixture again, till it’s really smooth.
5. Spoon the fudge mixture into baking cups.
6. Put the baking cups on a cookie sheet and then put the cookie sheet in the fridge.
7. Chill the fudge for 1 - 2 hours, till it’s firm. 

I added more chocolate chips after I finished mixing and I added skor toffee bits! Turned out pretty darn well if you ask me :)

 

9 Days

So I've been gluten-free for nine days now and I don't feel all that different than I did when I started this   lifestyle change.  I haven't had any gas and I have only been bloated a few times, but I guess I was expecting something more "A-HA!" as Oprah would say.  I think what I'll do is go all the way to 30 days and re-evaluate.  If after 30 days I notice a change in my overall health, then I'll stick with it!  What I may do is after the 30 days I may turn to just baking my own bread as opposed to buying any bread from stores that way I know that there are not any sort of fillers in what I'm eating.  I'll admit it, I miss my gourmet sandwiches with homemade pesto and roasted tomatoes and I miss BLTs.  I tried to make gluten-free bread on the weekend and it turned into a brick.  Like, I could throw it at someone and the 'bread' would probably knock them out.  Good for walking through a sketchy part of town, not good for eating.  Tonight for dinner I had some chicken salad after I got home from my run.

Chicken Salad

• can of chicken, in water (drained)
• cup of yogurt
• half a cup of celery
• a few stalks of green onions cuts up
• half a cup of grapes
• a generous tablespoon of curry powder
• handful of walnuts

Mix and enjoy.  I love the contrast of the grapes and the curry! Tasty tasty!

A Change of Lifestyle

Hello bloggersphere!

About two weeks ago I decided that I would completely cut wheat from my diet.  What prompted this change in lifestyle was reading the book Wheat Belly.  The book is rather insightful and it really opened my eyes to how bad wheat is for our bodies and health.  I have suffered from gastroesophageal reflux disease for a little over three years now and after reading about how wheat gluten is really hard on your gastrointestinal tract, I decided that cutting wheat from my daily diet would be the best decision for me. I have been wheat-gluten free for five days now and I am feeling pretty great.  My cravings for all things wheat are slowly subsiding and I'm feeling better than I have in months.

It is definitely a complete lifestyle change.  This is due to the fact that there is wheat in everything.  It requires you to be more conscious of what you are putting into your body and putting a bit more preparation into meals.  It is honestly not as hard as I thought it would be, which definitely is making it easier to stick to it!

The past week I've been looking up different recipes and getting inspiration from different blogs.  Tonight I'm going to make some homemade sloppy joes with homemade bread! I'll post pictures and the results tomorrow!

Anyways, check out the book Wheat Belly.  If anything, it gets you thinking critically about the food you are consuming.