Meatless Monday 09.27.10

Ok, this is our third installment of Meatless Monday! Today, most of the food is food featured from the local farmers market, or from our own garden. I also promise, after today, there will be other updates besides Meatless Monday, I have a whole bunch of links and ideas coming! Regardless, on to the food!

For breakfast, as usual, I had nothing. Laura had some Cheerios. So on to the lunch!

Crazy Cucumber!    For lunch we tried something different, that I have seen in many restaurant, so decided to try it on my own. We picked up a Armenian Cucumber at the Brazos Valley Farmers Market. I must admit that we bought this vegetable due to its strange shape. For lunch it was a simple pita sandwich. We cut up the cucumber, but a few slices inside of the pita (which was cut in half), and added some homemade baba ganoush, which I also made for a previous meatless Monday, and the recipe can be found here. I must say it was a delicious and refreshing pita sandwich, and I do plan on trying it again sometime. Even Laura, who is not a huge fan of Cucumbers, though that this sandwich was tasty.

 YUM!

 For an in between snack, we went to our favorite Frozen Yogurt Bar, Spoons Yogurt. Needless to say, there was not any meat involved in this. But there were nuts, kiwi fruit, and strawberries!

For dinner we decided on an recipe that we tried a few weeks ago for the first time. Now yesterday, we harvested from our garden over forty banana peppers, so we had to do something with them. We pickled two jars worth, but then with twenty-two of them, we decided to make stuffed Banana Peppers. We make two variates. One is stuffed with a rice mixture, and one is just stuffed with cream cheese and shredded parmesan cheese.

RICE!First to make the rice mixture, I make one cup of white rice. I cut one large lime in half and squeeze both sides worth of juice into the rice, add about 1 tablespoon of butter, some chopped up cilantro, and some salt and pepper. I mix it up together, and there ya have it. I usually also put in some sour cream for flavor, but this time, alas, our sour cream was bad, and we went with out it. It was equally delicious and better for us anyways.

Sliced peppers...

I then cut the top off of the banana peppers, and slice them down the middle. For the cream cheese cheese and parmesan peppers. I add just enough cream cheese in each pepper to fill it, and then take a pinch of parmesan and press it into the cream cheese. (With both the cream cheese and the rice, I use my hands to handle the filling and to stuff the peppers. Way easier than trying to use a spoon, but more messy).

Ready to put in the ovenFor the rice stuffed peppers, I fill as much rice as possible into the pepper. Then when all the peppers are stuffed, I sprinkle some cheddar cheese and chili powder on top of the peppers. I then put all of the peppers into the oven set at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. Pull them out, serve the rest of the rice stuffing with them, and your done. Quick and easy, and also delicious!

Finished peppers!!!

Look out this week for some mad posting! I have link and suggestions from everyone out there! Thank you! Plus I will finally look at my electric and gas bills and tell you how I've been doing. Remember, if you have any suggestions or ideas, send them my way! Thank you!

---Justin J. Stewart