Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Edible Candles

You know when you buy a car and it has that new car smell, that smells kinda like paint, but in a good way?  It's a good smell.  A proud smell.  You have just bought your first car and it's awesome.  Well unless you buy a brand new home, the "new" home smell just isn't the same.  It's musty, it's stale, it's not a proud smell, but a smell that you want nothing more than to get rid of.  But it's not easy to do.  I moved into my place March 1st.  I lit candles (the expensive kind), sprayed Febreze, misted everything with Victoria's Secret body spray, used serious cleaning supplies, everything to get MY scent into the new place. 

And you know what worked?  What got the musty old man smell out of my house?  COOKING.  I decided to cook some seriously smelly things to make my house smell like my home.  First course....BACON!  Nothing makes an entire house fill up with delicious porky goodness like bacon.  Next up, granola.  Cinnamon, nuts, honey, brown sugar...It's like lighting a candle that you can eventually eat later.  Works like a charm.  And lastly, and amazingly the thing that has actually lingered the longest...stuffed peppers.  Now when I walk into my house I smell garlic.  And there's nothing I love more than walking into a house that smells like garlic.  It reminds me of my dad's house.  It smells like cooking.  It smells like people take time each day to prepare themselves meals.  Delicious meals.  It smells like home.

Here's What You Need:
4 peppers (any color you like, tops cut off and core with seeds removed)  ** If you have trouble with your pepper standing up on its own, slice the bottom off so that it stands up by itself.
1 pound of ground beef
2 servings of white rice (I use minute rice and make enough for two servings...which is 1 cup of rice/1 cup of water - read the package)
3 cloves of garlic
1 large can of Hunt's tomato sauce (It's my favorite...you can use your favorite) leave a few tablespoons to top peppers off before baking.
1 tablespoon of onion powder
1 tablespoon of Sriracha
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese + extra for topping peppers.
Salt and Pepper

Here's What You Do:
Preheat oven to 350.  Boil a large pot of water and add in peppers.  Cook for about 3 minutes, just to slightly soften the skin.  If you don't do this step, your peppers will be very, very crunchy, and as much as I like crunchy, it just doesn't work with peppers in this dish.

Cook rice according to package, set aside.  Brown beef and strain, set aside.  Brown onion and garlic and crushed red pepper.  Add beef back into the pot.  Add in rice, tomato sauce, onion powder, Sriracha,  and salt and pepper to taste.  Add in cheese and mix together. 

In a baking dish, arrange peppers standing upright.  Stuff each pepper with the beef and rice mixture.  Top each pepper with a spoonful of tomato sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.  Bake for 30 minutes until cheese browns and beef/rice filling is hot.

Cheers to stuffed peppers and that YOU home smell.   

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