Veggies on the Grill!

It took me a few days to get time to make the Grill-Roasted Stuffed Peppers, take the pictures, get the article written and published - but I did it!

Most of the ingredients for our dinner of Grill-Roasted Stuffed Peppers with a Caprese Salad and corn on the cob can be seen here...

I cut up some yellow and red watermelon and a cucumber for us to snack on while we were cooking. The cheeses on the plate were from the farmers market. The wedge is a Habanero Monterrey Jack from Fulton Creek Jersey Cheese - you can find her at the Main Street Delaware Farmers Market on Wednesday and Saturday. She makes INCREDIBLE cheeses including a Parmesan that is out of this world. The smaller piece is the remains of a grass-fed Roasted Red Pepper cheese I picked up at the Mount Vernon Farmers Market on the Square. I'm drawing a blank on the name of the farm, but their cheese is also sold at the Sunbury Farmers Market.

I've got 2 kinds of tomatoes, Giant Marconi Italian sweet peppers, a Vidalia (really, I bought them before Brian told me about the bounty of Candy Onions and I needed to use them up!), garlic and a leek from the Delaware market and a medium-heat banana pepper.

Not the best picture - the sun was shining through the kitchen window. For my sausage and rice pepper filling, I've diced Vidalia Onion, the other half of the two tomatoes I used to make the Caprese Salad and minced some banana pepper, garlic and half a leek.

These Giant Marconi peppers might look a little funky for stuffing, but they hold their shape and don't fall over on the grill.

 Ready for the grill. I browned the Italian sausage, added the veggies and rice then simmered it until the rice was cooked. Use a spoon and get the filling into the nooks and crannies. Harry heated the grill to a medium heat and took over from there.

And it's supper time! Harry grilled the peppers just until a char started - not blackened, not burned. The peppers still have some "body" to them, not cooked to mush. I added the cheese and closed the lid of the grill for about a minute to melt.

You can find the complete recipe here...

Grill-Roasted Stuffed Peppers

The Weekend Veggie Haul!

Harry and I have different points of view about vegetables. There's a very rare vegetable that Harry will eat cooked, and I grew up eating religious veggies - turn the heat up and boil the hell out of 'em!

We're reaching a compromise. Fortunately, both of us will eat about anything raw. We cook the sweet corn just a few minutes to warm it up. He will tolerate sauteed green beans and permit me to indulge in my Southern-Fried favorites - green tomatoes and okra. We also use a lot of veggies, chopped fine, as filler for other things. Last night was "supposed" to be Vietnamese. Vietnamese egg rolls and a Garlic Beef Pan-Fried Noodle with a simple cucumber salad.

As always happens, the conversation and enjoyment of each other was a much higher priority than the actual food prep and cooking! So, we did finish the Vietnamese Egg Rolls, I made an awesome Spicy Lemongrass Dipping Sauce and Harry's Nuoc Cham has been perfected - recipes coming soon.

We collected quite a haul of veggies this weekend, between Dad's ninja raids of gardens, a generous donation of zucchini for The Wright Taste (Thanks Dr. Skip!) and some bartering at the farmers markets. We spent less than $15 on fresh veggies this week. I couldn't fit everything in one picture, but I got close:

 

A dozen ears of yellow corn from Richard and some long sweet peppers for roasting and a pint of jalapenos from my friend Brian in Mount Vernon (he also threw in a few tomatillos and some hot peppers). I have to go to Mount Vernon to pick up what was referred to as "scads" of Candy Onions from Brian - he can't sell them fast enough and they are absolutely delicious! I will start chopping and freezing them for winter.

The yellow watermelon (I shared half of it with Mom & Dad) is so sweet - the vendor shoved a piece in my mouth to taste and I was hooked! Also, the Yukon Gold potatoes and the two bowls of organic tomatoes, plus a couple of zucchini and the fresh garlic are from Delaware. I've never cooked with leeks before, so I bought one to try.

Dad raided his garden and my cousin's garden - zucchini, okra and tomatoes. The cucumbers are from our "garden". And, Harry got most of the red tomatoes in Pataskala on Friday night.

I'm a little excited about being able to take pictures again. Yes, I still suck as a photographer. Harry had a couple of studio lights and a tripod from his days of intense photography and video work. We've had them at the flea market and they hadn't sold and I realized HEY! We could use them to brighten up the kitchen to help with the pictures until I can afford a better camera (to replace the one that the thieving bastards stole in December!)


I've definitely got salsa on the brain with all the tomatoes and peppers.

That pile of okra will be tossed in a mixture of cornmeal, flour and seasoning and I'll "fry up a mess of okra" (Miss you, Gramma!) The little tiny yellow tomatoes - sweet like candy! - are about the size of Texas caviar. I'm thinking a cucumber, tomato and onion relish-ish type thing.

The long peppers are going to be stuffed with a Sweet-Italian Sausage/Rice/Tomato blend, then grill-roasted just until the peppers are perfect. We've had requests for Jalepeno/Cheese bread - I didn't quite get enough peppers in it last week, but now I've got plenty!

What are YOU finding in the garden or at the farmers market? We're in the midst of the best part of the Central Ohio growing season right now.

The Farmer's Market Book is a great guide to the history of local farmers markets. Robinson says it best when she describe farmers markets as "the other homeland security" - the sense of community that comes from shopping or participating in a farmers market can't be matched.

On Cooking from Scratch...

Everyone who knows me is well aware of my passion for cooking from scratch.

Yes, I still buy mayonnaise and butter - I've made them from scratch and I don't have to anymore! There are a few commercial products that I buy, such as cream of mushroom soup, because I haven't yet figured out a way to make it myself.

There are so many advantages to cooking from scratch: You know EXACTLY what is in your food, it's less expensive and it will always taste better.

Cooking from scratch does seem more expensive in the beginning. Stocking your pantry takes time but once the pantry and "magic drawer" are filled, you have a world of options at your fingertips.

Two of my earliest articles were all about cooking from scratch. I hope they give you some hope and help you realize it IS possible to save money AND time by cooking from scratch.

Stock Your Kitchen to Save Money

Save Money With Homemade Convenience Foods

I'm a fan of the cookbook in the Amazon link. All cooking and baking is based on ratios - so much liquid to so much flour to so much fat. Knowing these ratios can take the worry out of adapting a recipe to be more suitable to your tastes.

Harry SPEAKS! (well, writes!)

Really - I didn't just make him up. Harry is a real person and a real part of our kitchen. For The Wright Taste, he's the world's greatest sous chef, heavy-duty dishwasher and cinnamon roll roller-outer - and a heck of a salesman, the young girls and the older ladies LOVE him!

Without further delay, I'll let Harry introduce himself:

Food and water, the basics we need to survive. From Kobe beef and fine wine to the feast that awaits you under a rotting log and a drink of potable water, it will keep us alive. I can not afford the Kobe Beef and have no desire to revisit the Good Earth Happy Meals that Mother Nature will supply, so somewhere in between is a comfort zone that we can enjoy. The adventure as an individual or a couple is finding your comfort zone.

My tastes? I tend toward spicy meals (not hot) that assault your taste buds with each bite and a side dish or two to take care of the ones that the main course may have missed. In that I find that culinary dishes from Asia, the Middle East, and more locally Cajun and Creole do a fine job. Now, good Pulled Pork with a great barbecue sauce is hard to beat but it is a bit one dimensional and heavy for me. Ribs with a great Rub and added Mop sauce is getting closer, but when you step into the world of Cajun, Creole, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, or Vietnamese cooking, to name a few, the world of spices await you and the culinary treats are limited only by your imagination.

In our kitchen we play, we experiment, we enjoy, both the cooking and the eating. As it has been said many times, we enjoy cooking with Wine and sometimes we even put it in the food. We have many successes and a few failures but the reward is in the challenge to create a great dish to enjoy. I hope as we play and experiment that you will enjoy our successes and avoid our failures. Bon Appetit.


I don't know many greater joys than being in the kitchen with the one you love (well, anywhere with the one you love!) creating a necessity of life as simple or complex as you desire.