French Vanilla Apple Crisp

It was a dark and storm night, only one thing could be done. Bake. Bake is the answer for many of my dilemmas. There's something about assembling ingredients, chopping, stirring and baking until golden brown and bubbly that cure a multitude of ills. You should try it.

So back to last week, when I opened my Frigidaire there were two sad apples leftover from afternoon snack. What can you do with apples with three bites missing? Make them into a crisp. These are the crisps we devoured last week, the baking and eating were mutually enjoyed.

Peel, core and chop up two or three apples. Two if they are large, three if there are bites missing out of some of your apples. Pile them into a mixing bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of sugar, a sprinkling of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of vanilla, a generous tablespoon of heavy cream and a few grains of salt. Mix it up and divide between two buttered baking dishes or one larger dish if you plan to share. As you can see I used my creme brulée pans and they were lovely. We did not share.

In the same bowl you mixed the apples in, mix 3 tablespoons of flour and 3 tablespoons of sugar with 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter until it's crumbly. Stir in 2 tablespoons each of oats and chopped walnuts. Give it a stir and pile it on top of the apples.

After it's piled sufficiently, set them in a 375˚ oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. They should settle some and be golden brown and bubbly.

It's a good idea to set them on a baking sheet to bake unless you like cleaning your oven. I do not like cleaning my oven as anyone who looks in my oven can attest to. Anyway, serve these up to the lucky participants, they would be really lucky if you topped it with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Obviously, you can make this in a larger pan and double the recipe. I didn't because I was only making them for two people instead of eight. This wouldn't last three minutes with the horde. Well, actually they didn't last much longer than that as it was. I hope you try these crisps, they were trés beaucoup!

The Recipe Box...Finally!

Nearly everyday a card is added to my recipe collection. This has resulted in a recipe box problem. I've worn out a regular old plastic index card box and have been looking for a replacement ever since. If you know me, you know I couldn't just go to the store and pick up another plastic card box. No, I need something cool and preferably old. Enter this fabulous old storage container. Originally used to store your leftover meatloaf or spaghetti in the Frigidare, this baby was snagged on a flea market spree with my mom this summer. It didn't become home to my recipes until last month when I finally got fed up with trying to find my pita recipe in the tiny box I was keeping everything it. Is it not perfect?

During the move to their new home, I was caught up in the history of so many of my recipes. Nearly every one has memories attached to it, who gave it to me, who I made it for, who loved that particular thing and even who I've passed it on to. History that makes a recipe more than a mixture of butter, sugar and flour, it transforms a list and some directions into a road-map of my life. Being the emotional creature that I am, I found myself sitting at our table crying over my recipes. Funny how a splattered index card can do that to me. I thought I would share some of my favorite recipe-memories with you:

My Mom's Molasses Ginger Cookies. My family has made these cookies every Christmas since who knows when. The rolling/cutting/icing/sprinkles mess is as much a part of Christmas as decorating the tree.

Daily Bread. I have made this bread at least once a week for several years. It's one of the first bread recipes I adapted/made up myself and we love it.

Mrs. Penny's Broccoli Salad, a truly magical salad. Our dear family friend served it to us when I was a teenager and I copied down the recipe that night. I have several recipes from dinners at Mrs. Penny's house.

This is one that got me. My sister's Aunt Clara's Harvest Coffee Cake. We've been making this coffee cake for more years than I can remember and I don't even know where my sister came across it. Last year my sister move out of the country and I miss her so very much. I might just have to bake a coffee cake in honor of her. If only she could drop by for a piece and a good long chat.

So there you have it, some of my favorite recipe-memories. Now I know where to go when I'm feeling nostalgic, straight to my own glass box of history!

Mama's Cornbread

Don't you want some cornbread? I thought so. Every southern food book I've ever read (and that has been a few, believe me) shares memories of their mama's cornbread. In the south, cornbread usually means unsweetened cornbread baked in a sizzling hot skillet. Super sweet cornbread baked in a pyrex pan was cake not cornbread. If my Mamaw had set a plate of that down in front of my Papaw he would have thrown it out to his hound dog. No offense to lovers of yankee cornbread but "real" cornbread is a serious thing in the south, impostors could be shot!

My Mama is famous for her cornbread. I love love love it and must have it at least once a week. Her crispy, buttery cornbread is one of the only things I have a deep craving for year round. It goes with everything, beans, soup, salad, butter, anything really. I make it for breakfast sometimes and there is never a crumb left. Now I make two pans of it so everyone can have plenty. Made with fresh ground cornmeal and flour, you can't beat it for a healthy quick bread.

I will now ask my Mama to look aside while I tell you that I have slightly modified her recipe to fit my cooking so it's not her exact recipe. Honey instead of sugar, fewer eggs and less butter. Okay Mama, you can look back. So get out your skillet and let's make a pan (pone as Mamaw used to call it) of cornbread.

The first step is to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Set your iron skillet in there to heat up too. A hot skillet is the secret to good crusty cornbread. Measure a cup of flour, cup of cornmeal, 1 tablespoon baking powder and a teaspoon of salt into a large bowl. Stir it to mix all your dry ingredients together.

Enlist a handy kid to mix up 1 and 1/4 cup of milk, 2 eggs and 1 tablespoon of honey in a measuring cup or small bowl. If there are no handy kids, just beat it together yourself. All the same and you probably have cleaner hands. I hope so anyway.

When your oven and iron skillet are good and hot, set the skillet out on your stove and melt 2 tablespoons of real butter in it (Don't you like my square pan? It was Grandma's.). Pour the wet mixture into the dry and give it a few stirs, then pour the melted butter quickly into the batter. Stir it up to mix the butter in. Be sure to not burn yourself with the skillet, it's super hot! Pour the batter into the skillet.

Can you see what's happening? Look at the edge of the skillet and see how the batter is foaming up. It is searing in the hot skillet and that is what gives you the magical golden crust. Bake it for 20 minutes in your hot oven and then flip it out onto a big platter. Flipping it out of the pan is a bit of a trick, I still catch myself holding my breath every time I turn do it. Just have faith and go for it.

Then all that's left is to cut it up and serve wedges or squares of hot golden goodness to all the lucky people sitting around your table. You'll be glad you did.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

Need I say more? Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies with Maple Buttercream. If you had come to my house around 4:00 in the afternoon on Valentine's Day you would have been offered one of these delights. It may have been decorated by one of the eleven children who were busily decorating cookies, which would have made them all the sweeter. These were the Valentine cookies that almost weren't though.

I made up a few trays of the cookies (heart shaped sandwich cookies with raspberry filling) for a dear friend's birthday that morning and noticed the sound of someone playing with the rolling pin. Well, that afternoon when I was ready to bake the rest of the cookies, the rolling pin was no where to be found. We searched high and low and ended up borrowing one from our neighbors. The next morning while making our bed, my foot hit something under the bed and there it was. Now why didn't I think to look under my bed?

So here is the recipe for these fabulous, search-no-more, make them every holiday cookie. The cream cheese makes them ultra rich, the sugar (try raw sugar in these) is just right, not overpowering and they rolled out like a dream. I adapted the recipe from one on allrecipes.com. They will be regular guests at all our holidays and any other occasion that may need cookies. What occasion wouldn't need cookies anyway?

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

2 cups sugar

2 cups butter

1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

4 1/2 cups flour

Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Cream the sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, vanilla and egg. Stir in flour and mix well. Divide into two parts and flatten into disks. Wrap in waxed paper and chill overnight.

Cut one disc in half and work with one piece at a time. Rewrap the other piece and set it back in the fridge. Roll one piece of dough out on a floured surface to about 1/8 of an inch thick and cut out with a cookie cutter. Bake on an ungreased baking sheet for 8 to 10 minutes or until they are golden around the edges. Cool before frosting.

This makes a lot of cookies but you can always freeze one of the discs of dough for another time. With my horde I need a lot of cookies so I baked them all. I also ate an inordinate amount of them. They are evil and destroyed the last vestiges of my self-control.

To make Maple Buttercream, use any good buttercream recipe (use real butter please!) and add maple flavoring instead of vanilla. You wouldn't want to use as much maple as vanilla so add a little and taste to see if you need more. Try not to eat all the frosting. Pipe it on your cookies with a cute decorating tip or use it to frost a cake. You'll be glad you did!

Lately...

Lately we have been having snow and snow and more snow. Quite a bit of snow for our little corner of the world. I am a snow spectator, it's my belief that snow is lovelier when viewed through glass. But on Saturday the kids and I bundled up and did some fort building. The boys needed lots of "ammunition" shelves for the "ambush" they were planning for their dad when he came back from work. They are into military stuff right now in case you were wondering.

Here we usually get ice before any snow starts falling and this time was no exception. A good half inch of ice coated everything under the four inches of snow. The beautiful thing about it for me was that I didn't need a single thing from the store! We had been shopping a few days before so we had some fresh things but even without that we were prepared. I had plenty of food, batteries, candles, water, even a huge bar of chocolate with hazelnuts that our sweet neighbors brought us from their trip to Europe! What more could you want?

So we have been snowed-in. Keeping up with school and housework and doing a bit of reading. Reading with six chickadees underfoot really tests your comprehension but I am one determined woman. My little old blog has been a bit neglected of late but that how things go. More and then less, finding the ever changing balance.

We are having soup for dinner with Red Lobster biscuits. I'm washing the perpetual laundry. The big brothers are confined to their room to save the living room furniture, not to mention my sanity, from their roughhousing and now sweet babe is ready to be nursed. Fullness and plenty that is what I have lately. What is at your house lately? I love hearing snippets of your lives, so tell me about it! And check out the blog list for links to some of my new favorite blogs, I think you'll like them.

Friday Photo

Last night we had a family party for Cubbie. What a fun age this two year old boy is at! He was quite delighted with his firetruck cake. His fascination with big trucks is in full swing, the weekly visit of the trash truck is so very exciting. I do believe the trash truck is second only to his Papaw and his truck. At our house we have three birthday traditions; the birthday person gets to choose the theme of their cake, then help decorate it and everyone tells what special thing they love about the celebrated one. Simple, fun and sweet. Cubbie "listened" to everyone's favorite things about him while merrily eating all the frosting off his slice of cake before turning to my piece to eat my frosting. Sorry Bud, Mama doesn't share vanilla buttercream with anyone! Birthday or no birthday!

Friday Photo

Grandma Helen's cake keeper. One of my favorite things. It was always used to hold the famous 1-2-3-4 Cake, but this time it held a Coconut Pineapple Cake. Yummy! I hope your weekend holds sweet things for you!

A Year of Pie: Spiced Pumpkin Pie

At our home, we are serious about Pumpkin Pie. It was the first thing I ever cooked for my husband when we were dating. Over the years it has been his birthday "cake" multiple times, kind of to be expected when you have a late October birthday. I have made it from fresh pumpkin many times, even tried cooking down the pumpkin puree in an iron skillet to make it extra rich before adding it to the pie filling. You name it, I've tried it.

The real breakthrough came from an old Bon Appetit magazine salvaged from the free bin at our library. Several years ago, the actual magazine met it's fate but the torn out page found a permanent home in my recipe file. What sets this apart from the back-of-the-can recipe is the combination of sugars, the spices and the addition of molasses and real cream. No evaporated milk to be found here friends, just the straight up real stuff. My only change from the original recipe is to use a homemade crust instead of the frozen crust they call for. Don't mean to sound like a food snob here, folks, but a pie crust is really easy to make. Do not fear the crust. Try my recipe and you will see for yourself what a difference it makes. That said, let's make some Spiced Pumpkin Pie!

In a good sized bowl, combine your dry ingredients. I love the contrasting colors of the four spices all together.

Here are the four different spices I used. All my spices and herbs come from our local natural foods store where they have a bulk herb section. Not only is the selection incredible, they are very fresh and much much cheaper than what you find at the grocery store. I could just stand there and open each jar one at a time and smell them all. I keep my spices in 4 ounce canning jars, they are a perfect size and you can enjoy all the pretty colors whenever you open the cabinet.

Above you can see the three eggs, funny how different the colors of the yolks are. Also, you can see my favorite eggbeater. This one hangs by my stove and gets used everyday. If you don't have a sturdy vintage rotary beater, find yourself one. You'll be forever grateful, they are so very handy.

This vintage pyrex bowl has a pretty cross-stitch pattern that you can't see on the outside, inside it has the beaten eggs, molasses, heavy cream and pumpkin puree. Pumpkin puree from a can. I love it.

Pouring the cream/egg/pumpkin/molasses mixture into the sugar and spice mixture. It's kind of mesmerising pouring in there isn't it?

Here is the pie, ready to go into a hot oven. The sacred magazine page is sitting right by the pie.

And now the finished pie, still slightly puffed from baking. I have a thing about crust, incase you hadn't noticed. The bottom of the crust must be golden and baked. Obviously this presents some problems since it is on the bottom of a searing hot pie plate. This is why I alway use glass. When I think it's just about done, I carefully take it out of the oven and lift it up high enough to see the bottom crust. If it's not brown enough, it goes back in to finish. An underbaked crust is the ruination of many good pies. Bake that crust!

Spiced Pumpkin Pie

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons unbleached flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/8 teaspoon ginger

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (one can)

2 tablespoons molasses

3 eggs

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 nine inch pie crust

Stir together the first 8 ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, molasses, eggs and cream. Pour into the first mixture and then into the pie crust. Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake about 40 minutes or until the center is just set. Cool and serve with lots of freshly whipped cream.

Serving with lots of freshly whipped cream is just what you'll find me doing this Thursday, this and The Other Pie.

Raisin Scones

Every couple of weeks we have hot scones for breakfast. Basically a scone is a lightly sweetened biscuit. Beyond the basics, the sky is the limit with scones. You can bake up savory scones with herbs and cheese to serve with a rich stew in the winter or quiche and a beautiful salad in the summer. Of course, small dainty scones with strawberry jam and devonshire cream is a must for tea party. This recipe is tried and true, and it's bona fide since it comes from a bread book written by a British baker. I have adapted it a bit for my taste and I always double the recipe to feed the horde. This recipe is dedicated to my dear friend Sally, who has never been too old for a tea party!

Raisin Scones

adapted from 100 Great Breads by Paul Hollywood

1 2/3 cups unbleached white flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons of butter

2 medium eggs, beaten

scant cup of milk

1/2 cup raisins

sugar for sprinkling

Mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or by hand (I always use my hands, they are your best kitchen utensil!). Mix together the eggs and milk, then stir into the flour and butter mixture. Knead lightly in the bowl or on a floured surface, adding more milk if the mixture is too dry. Knead in the raisins until evenly distributed. Pat the dough into a thick circle and cut out with a biscuit cutter. For breakfast I use a large size but for a tea party I would use my smallest cutter. Put the scones on a buttered baking sheet and sprinkle them with sugar. I only use raw sugar for baking and it makes the loveliest crust on the tops of the scones. If you only have granulated sugar it will be just fine, but raw sugar is amazing for this. It will make you will make you feel quite fancy indeed! Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Serve right away with plenty of butter, jam and devonshire cream. Be sure to wear your best hat!

Bread for the Challenged

I love bread. It's serious folks, I bake some form of bread almost every day. Yesterday it was tortillas, today was homemade crust for our cheese pizza at lunch, Monday I made a loaf of the hearth bread you see in the photograph. This weekend it was two loaves of braided Oatmeal Sunflower Bread for a family get-together. I am blessed to own a wonderful bread mixer that I love but with the time constraints of homeschooling and keeping up with the brood, I was looking for a faster and easier option for my baking fixation.

Enter the no-knead bread method. This had been all over the internet but I just recently picked up the book at our library. If you are a cookbook reading nerd you will enjoy reading through his introduction and the descriptions of each recipe. If you are a bread snob like myself you will love the final product of his recipes. What I can't get over is how easy and quick it is to make fabulous bread following his methods. My only problem is that it makes one loaf. My family is ravenous and one loaf doesn't last too long. But I guess that's a good problem to have.

To make the loaf in the photograph I mixed 1 and 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour with 2 cups of white flour, 1 teaspoon of yeast, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and about 1 and 1/2 cup of water. It takes just enough water to make the dough come together, it will be sticky but that's okay. I stirred it together right before I went to bed, popped a lid on the bowl and left it on the counter. That's all! No kneading, watching or punching down. Nothing. The next morning, I turned the dough out onto the countertop after I sprinkled it with some flour and quickly shaped it into a ball. Then I dusted a cloth napkin heavily with flour and set the ball of dough, smooth side up on the napkin and let it rest. The dough is quite sticky so you have to work quickly but it isn't critical to get it smooth or perfect, just rounded up. After about an hour I put my cast iron pot with a lid into the oven while it heated to 450 degrees. About 45 minutes later I took the lid off the pan and tipped the risen loaf off of the napkin and into the pan. This is a bit nerve-wracking for recovering perfectionists but it will rise in the pan while it's baking and that seems to take care of any mess-ups in the dough transfer. The bread baked for 15 minutes with the lid on and 25 minutes with the lid off. Then all there is to it is to cool on a rack.

This recipe works great for pizza dough if you increase the yeast to 2 teaspoons and let it rest in the bowl for about 2 hours. I mix it up before we start school to make pizza for lunch. It just can't get any easier than that.

I hope you try it out and look for the book, he has so many other recipes that I didn't try out, not yet anyway!

A Year of Pie: August is Fresh Peach Pie

Everything has been wild and crazy around here. So much of my time since the baby's birth has been spent adjusting and just staying afloat. It is however peach season, my favorite season of all. I wait all year for August, the divine month of perfectly ripe Arkansas peaches. While I was waiting to pay for my bushel of Red Haven's, tears came to my eyes. It's pretty serious, folks, peaches and I go way back. On Sunday I chopped some up for preserves, set some aside to eat fresh and then sliced the remainder up for our August edition of A Year of Pie. Perfection!

You don't need a recipe for Fresh Peach Pie. Just peaches. Oh and pie crust would be nice too. Above you can see the sliced peaches tossed with about 1/2 cup of brown sugar, a pinch of salt and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Let it sit while you work on the crust.

When you get the bottom crust in the pie plate, fill it with your luscious peaches and dot with butter. Wet the rim of the bottom crust and gently lay the top crust on it and fold the edges under.

Crimp the edges, brush the top with milk and sprinkle with sugar, be sure to cut some slits in the crust for steam to escape. Put it in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling out of the slits. Set your beautiful creation on a rack to cool as long as you can stand to wait and then serve that baby up!

Banana Crunch Muffins

My sister has informed me that it has been a while since I posted something. Well, we've been busy over here in these parts. Very busy nuzzling a certain baby neck and monitoring holding turns and such things. There hasn't been too much cooking going on thanks to our wonderful family and friends who have fed us for the past few weeks. However, I have taken care of breakfast and snacks so what I am sharing today is the result of my breakfast cooking. I would love to share some of the actual muffins but if you came'a knocking at my door, I'm sorry to say that there would be none to share. I couldn't stop eating them. And nursing appetite aside, they were really that good. Today I whipped up another batch to show you these photographs so if you came by in the next day or so you might actually score one for yourself. Hurry though, this nursing mama needs her calories!

The recipe is adapted from one on Allrecipes.com

In a large bowl, mix 3 cups of flour (I use half whole wheat/half unbleached), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon salt. Whisk to combine. Measure the wet ingredients into a large liquid measuring cup. Mix 3/4 cup milk, 2 eggs (I used "flax eggs" 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds and 6 tablespoons water) and 1 cup of oil or melted butter (do not be afraid of the fat, it makes everything better). Mash 2 or 3 very ripe bananas. I chose not to show the mashed bananas, they looked pretty grotty. Set all these mixtures and mashes aside while you measure out the crunchy stuff and butter your muffin pans. This recipe makes 24 muffins, by the way. You can cut the recipe in half or keep the extra muffins to freeze or eat in a frenzy later on.

In another bowl, measure out the crunchy ingredients. You need 1 cup of chopped walnuts, 1 cup of coconut and 1 cup of granola or oatmeal. If you can, use your mother-in-laws antique bowl that she left in your fridge over the weekend full of egg salad so you wouldn't have to cook. Try not to think about keeping it.

Now, back to the first bowls. Pour your wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix quickly and gently. Quickly and gently are the cardinal rules of muffin mixing. Never forget them. Stir in the mashed bananas. See, I told you they look ooky. Don't worry about mixing it completely, when you add the crunchy stuff everything will mix together.

Pour in the ingredients that were in the Mother-in-law bowl. Again, try not to covet the bowl. Recognize your obsession with antique mixing bowls and then move on. I hope you are impressed with my action shot going on here. I try. Gently fold the nuts/coconut/granola mixture in. Remember the cardinal rule and don't get too busy with the folding.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tins. A word about buttering the tins as opposed to using paper liners. Obviously, the paper liners are easier but the muffins always stick and then you lose some of the delicious muffin. This bothers me so I buck up and butter the tins. Also, have you ever tried to eat a muffin while pulling the paper liners off of muffins for 5 kids? By the time you get to the fourth kid, the first one is ready for another muffins. Not very conducive to muffin eating.

Here are the muffins after baking for 20 to 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Warm and moist with a bit of crunchy yumminess, just perfect!

A Year of Pie. June: Creamy Coconut

Recently, my dear husband informed me that he had a request. Since he "hardly ever asked for anything" (anyone who has ever met him can take a break to laugh hysterically), he felt sure that it was a reasonable request and surely I couldn't refuse him. He simply wanted more pie. That's all. More pie. Well, who could deny anyone such a practical and reasonable request. Far be it from me to say no to that. What we came up with was a plan to make a different pie each month showcasing that season's most "pieable" flavor. For June I decided on Coconut Pie, or Creamy Pie as my neighbor's son calls it.

After a bit of scanning cookbooks, I turned to good old Allrecipes.com to scope out the best coconut pie recipe. When I found one that sounded good and adapted it, I knew I had a winner. It was creamy and luscious, definitely not vegan but it was for a potluck dinner so an exception was made. The crust was my usual recipe but made with all whole wheat flour. A few weeks ago I made another pie and doubled the crust recipe and put this one in the freezer. Whenever you make pie crust, try to make an extra one. It doesn't take any more time to make two but it sure saves time. The wheat crust was especially nice with the coconut filling. Whole wheat crust is sturdier so it's great with a substantial filling. Speaking of filling...

Creamy Coconut Pie

2 eggs

1 can of coconut milk (look in the asian section of the store)

1 1/2 cups half and half

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

3/4 cup coconut

1 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 cup coconut, toasted (350 degree oven for 5ish minutes. Watch it closely!)

1 prebaked and cooled pie crust

Whisk the eggs really well. I pretty much beat the fool out of them because if you don't you'll get little bits of cooked egg white in your custard and that's yucky. Really yucky. Beat in the coconut milk and half and half. In a saucepan combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Whisk in the egg mixture and cook over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Stir constantly to keep it from scorching or getting lumpy. When it is nice and thick, take it off the heat and stir in the butter. After it is melted, stir in the coconut. Pour the custard into the pie shell and press a sheet of waxed paper onto the surface and set it to cool. Chill until ready to serve.

Just before serving, whip the cream and 1 tablespoon sugar. When you have stiff peaks, pile it onto the chilled pie and sprinkle with the toasted coconut.

Now step back and see what you have created. Good job!

Greek Stuffed Peppers

In our new venture into full-scale vegetarianism we have come across quite a few hits and this stuffed pepper recipe is one of them. I guess you could call it a formula instead of a recipe since it is so flexible, kind of a use what you have and what you like kind of thing. If you like red peppers more than green, go for it. Maybe olives or feta doesn't float your boat, substitute something else or leave it out. Personally, I could eat feta cheese until the cows come home or at least until my kids catch me with it and make me share! So here we go, Greek Stuffed Peppers.

Throw some brown (or white) rice in a bowl. I figure on about 1/2 cup for each pepper half so I used 5 cups this time. Also, this is a great dish to use leftover rice in. I try to cook extra rice whenever I'm cooking brown rice since it takes longer to cook. Leftover rice is good for breakfast or using in a main dish like this one. Now, add the chopped black olives. I guess if you were really being Greek you would use Kalamata olives but we go for good old black olives around here. I keep a can or two in the pantry for our "finger food lunches".

While you are chopping the olives and measuring rice, you can saute some onion and garlic in some olive oil. How much onion you need depends on how many peppers you are cooking. I used 1 large onion and 2 big cloves of garlic. Onions and garlic are inexpensive and add so much flavor you can almost never use too much as long as you cook it properly. With something like stuffed peppers that won't bake very long you would want to cook the onions completely before adding them to the other ingredients. Crunchy onions aren't a great thing in some dishes.

Here you see my filling, rice, olives, sauteed onions and garlic, diced cherry tomatoes and a package of feta cheese. It's seasoned with salt, lots of black pepper and some oregano. Let me warn you, this filling is fabulous. I have to fill the pepper halves before I taste it or I can't stop myself. It would make a great dinner just like this without the peppers.

Speaking of peppers. While I have been chopping and sauteing, measuring and mixing, my pepper halves have been roasting. Just slice them in half and clean out the seeds. I lay them cut side down to roast so they don't get watery. Word of advice here, foil is your friend. Use foil with this recipe because peppers make a mess. It's much easier to throw out the foil than clean a pan. I'd put foil on my kids it it would make them easier to clean.

After the peppers roast for about 25 minutes (400 degree oven), turn them over, sprinkle with salt and scoop the filling into them. I always put extra salt on the peppers before filling because it seems like they tend to be bland tasting. Salt really perks them up. So don't be shy with the salt. After they are all happily stuffed, pop them back into the oven until they are hot all the way through, about 10 minutes, then serve with a big salad and some bread. Oh, and while they are baking you can eat the rest of the filling out of the bowl!