It's all gouda: main dish

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Super Stuffed Peppers ... On The Grill!!!

Happy Saturday greetings to you all! Guess what? Guess what? That magnificent solar orb in the sky is blazing bright today over the Pacific Northwest. Not only that, it’s hot, hot, hot!

As such, today’s weather called for an equally dazzling meal. Check out these gluten free babies. I made stuffed peppers on the grill. Not just any ole stuffed peppers ... these babies are overstuffed with all sorts of Mexican style goodies. I’ve actually made gluten free stuffed peppers twice in the past couple of weeks. The first time I made them using ground chicken for the meat portion and I cooked them in the oven. They were terrific. Today, however, I used ground beef and made them on the grill. Grill trumps oven, hands down. One of the secrets that makes this so yummilicious is the cubed cheese in the filling. It makes the most delicious pockets of gooey yumminess! Mmm, mmm, good. Let's begin!

These super stuffed peppers are so easy to assembly. I used up bits of this and that that I had handy, and my oh my did hubbyman love these.

Super stuffed peppers on the grill

1 lb ground beef
4 peppers halved and seeded (I used red, green, yellow, and orange peppers)
1 cup or so of leftover cooked rice, cold
¾ cup black beans, rinsed
¾ cup corn
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 cup cubed mont. jack cheese or mozzarella cheese
1 egg beaten with a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons green salsa
2 tablespoons red salsa (can substitute tomato sauce)
Salt
Seasoned Salt
Black Pepper
Mexican Oregano
Chili powder

Preheat your grill to 400 degrees. Partially fill a large stockpot with water and bring to a boil. Remove from the burner, drop in your pepper halves, and let sit in the hot water for about 3-5 minutes. Remove and drain.

Meanwhile, combine all the other ingredients. Place peppers in a tall sided aluminum pan. I used two pans placing 4 halves in each pan. Over stuff each pepper making sure to fill the pepper cavity completely. The filling shrinks during cooking.

Place a double sheet of aluminum foil on the grill, and put your pan(s) on top of the foil. Pour about ½ cup of hot water into each pan. Close the lid and grill for 50 minutes.

Couple of notes: Placing the peppers in the boiling water for just a couple of minutes prior to stuffing really makes a difference. You know how sometimes the pepper remains too crunchy? Well, this precooking bath really eliminates that. Be careful, though, not to let them sit too long or they’ll be too soft.

See what I mean by overstuffed? Yeeowza! Serve with additional salsa, shredded cheese (I used cotija), and avocado. Prepare to hear yummy noises. Oh, and like most recipes here at It's All Gouda, this is gluten free, all the way, baby!

My only regret with these is that Marjie is allergic to peppers. I wonder what other veggies take well to stuffings like this? Any ideas? What’s your favorite stuffed pepper recipe?

Homeschool Tips and Tools: 2010

Bananagrams! Not too long ago, my kids and I discovered a great new game called Bananagrams. Far more fast paced and loads easier to play than Scrabble, this game requires only a table top and kids to get the fun underway. Better yet, adults and kids of all ages can play together. The playing pieces come packaged in a delightful, banana colored and shaped, zippered cloth pouch. It's free formed fun, and great entertainment for the entire family.

From a homeschooling perspective, it's a great tool to segue into creative writing or story telling. My kids create their own Bananagram "puzzle" and then use the words they created to write or tell an impromptu story. Silly or serious, all type of stories are encouraged!

The book titled English from the Roots Up by Joegil K. Kundquist has rapidly become one of my favorite resources for building a strong vocabulary base for my children. This spiral bound book provides both Latin and Greek word roots that provides students with tools to help them determine word meanings. I absolutely love it, and the rapid results that I see in my children are amazing. This is way better than a spelling program; by studying word roots, my children are gaining a much broader understanding of language and the power of words. The lessons are very easy to administer, short in duration, and my kids enjoyed them.

On the writing frontier, there is a book called Story Starters, Helping Children Write Like They've Never Written Before by Karen Andreola that provides writing prompts in the form of partially written stories for children to complete. While I found the book to be just ok, my children love it. I read the partially written story aloud, and they write the rest. The kids really enjoyed doing this as each of them looked forward to hearing the other's completed versions. This ended up being a great experience as the kids really wanted to impress their siblings with their version, and thus put more effort into their writing.

And for the grammar enthusiast lurking inside your student, here's a great book that explains how to diagram sentences. Diagraming Sentences by Deborah White Broadwater is a 46 page workbook complete with an answer key, and is perfect for your middle schooler.

Does your student embrace Science? Do you need quality supplies to conduct more in depth experiments at home? Check out Home Science Tools. I'm very impressed with the quality of the products we just ordered. Beakers, flasks, stirring rods, thermometers, chemicals, safety equipment, and so much more can be found and ordered on their website. www.homesciencetools.com . The items we received were top quality, the customer service rep was super, and the items were extremely well packed and delivered as promised. Look out Bill Nye ... future scientists in the house!

Lapbooking and Notebooking are buzz words in the homeschool community. Here are two great resources for incorporating those strategies into your learning curriculum. Big Book of Books by Dinah Zike and The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling helped me enhance our homeschooling experience using lapbooks. The content found in these books enabled me to teach a group of homeschool mom's how to incorporate lapbooking into their curriculums. You'll want to laminate your copies as they will get pulled off the shelf over and over again.