Cheese and Choux

So, I do recognize that I've been a fairly tardy blogger.  However, I can point to a litany of excellent excuses. 

The sun has been shining for nearly two weeks straight.  The park where I run has been beckoning, and the foot (mine, not my husband's) that has kept me from doing so has begun to heal.  The year, for me, is at its most exquisite.  It's the narrow sliver, the slice of perfect, that acted as a reward in the biting cold of winter.  I had forgotten the simplest, most lovely touchstones of spring - the falling to sleep with the windows open and the rising with the birds as they chirp.  I appreciate it even more this year, I think, because of the heady quality to my autumn and winter.  Autumn was all joyous weddings (ours and others), but tempered by the massive amount of change.  I thought I was okay with transition, but it turns out that I have my limits.  Winter was bleak.  The test and the snow and the locomotive-like wind nearly knocked me out.  So this spring, this transient moment where trees bloom as flowers do, feels like peace.  At the very least, I've been counting my blessings.  Yet, I do recognize that I haven't done much blogging.  We're in luck however.  With a thunderstorm roaring outside (and the resulting promise that April flowers actually DO often bring May flowers), here we go.

Though it's probably obvious right now, I would often rather be outside.  I would rather be outside than, oh, just about anything.  As a result, I haven't done massive amounts of cooking.  I've cooked, of course.  All of my meals been a bit meh, though.  It isn't so much that I don't care, because hopefully you know by now that I relish deceiving Jordan with as many vegetables as possible.  It's just that cooking often requires planning.  It requires basic things, like a grocery list.  Like thought.  Instead, I've been logging hours walking and running in the park where I try my very best to clear my head.  And not to think.  In short, I've been seeking out some inspiration again.

Often, when I want to be inspired, I turn to a number of famous chefs and their pretty cookbooks.  Grocery store web sites are great, too.  On the slowest, most uninspired of days, there is always Google.  I'm not sure what's been the matter with me, all of this time, thinking that I arrogantly know what's best for me.  I'm not sure, not sure at all, why I hadn't turned to my mother.

I should start by saying that I grew up in a meat and potatoes family.  In the lean years when I (the first baby) was little, I can remember nights where my mother was still working crazy shifts.  My dad would be a bit harried, trying to feed us three, and Chef Boyardee was often involved.  It was the eighties, and I think that the notion of food as a name-brand thing was almost fashionable.  Anyway, the point is that I recall with great nostalgia both my mother's secret recipe for chicken salad and Kraft macaroni & cheese.  Homemade food had its constraints, and they did the very best that they could.  And in the string of meals every night at 6 pm, my mom would sometimes offer up some real gems.  One of my favorite meals, with its glistening emerald coating and charged red sauce, was Stuffed Peppers.  They were the best.  Even now, even grown up, they're still the very best.  Until recently however, I completely forgot about them.

I should say that - you know this by now - I'm stubborn.  I like to think that I'm independent.  I don't particularly care for asking for advice.  In fact, I'm often that really aggravating person who refuses to ask for directions.  I don't care if I'm spinning in circles, I won't allow myself to be led.  Still, sometimes the guidance of another can loosen up our burdens.  Spinning in circles exhausts a tremendous amount of energy.  Sometimes, life is just best easy.  In that spirit, I finally called my mom to ask for her recipe. 

Like any dish that's been loved to the point that it's become reflexive however, my mom didn't remember the nuts and bolts of the recipe.  She etched out its bones for me, though.  And like any stubborn daughter in her mid-twenties, I've messed with it a little.  For instance, I needed a side dish, not the main meal.  (You know me and my endless quest for side dishes).  In any case, I dispensed with the traditional ground chuck.  Also, instead of marinara sauce, I used salsa.

I have to digress for a minute to wax poetic about cilantro.  This is an herb that I detested in my teens - I always felt that too much of it had the interesting aftershock of clearing out my sinuses.  It wasn't what I wanted in salad.  Lately though, I've come to yearn for this unique jolt to the system.  Lately, I've been eating way too much Mexican and Latin-inspired food as a result.  My Stuffed Peppers were chock full of cilantro.  And while quinoa might have been an interesting choice of "stuffing," this grain has become nearly trendy (read: cheap) recently.  It's very accessible.  How something as ancient as Babylon becomes trendy is beyond me.  Nonetheless, I like quinoa best because - though it's fairly tasty stuff - it has a Goldilocks-aesthetic that makes me smile. 

So, they aren't my mother's stuffed peppers.  I made them for a mid-week meal, just as she would have done once.  I made them because I wasn't exactly in the mood to be cooking (after running blithely through the park), just as she would have done once (after a tireless night-shift at the hospital).  And, of course, my Stuffed Peppers were a pale imitation of my mother's dish.  I should have called her a long time ago.

Mexican Stuffed Peppers  (*Will annoy mother for her recipe eventually)

Ingredients

4 stuffed bell peppers (either green or red)

Salsa, 1 regular-sized jar or homemade

1 can black beans, or dry black beans that have been soaked over night in water  (*Note that I do realize that I used kidney beans, instead.  But, as with coffee, I always prefer black).

1 cup quinoa, cooked according to your instructions

1 cup of cooked corn, cooked according to your instructions

1 medium-sized onions, chopped

3/4 cup of any grated Latin cheese

Grated parmesan

Cilantro (!!!)

Instructions

First, cook the quinoa and black beans according to instructions.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Chop off the top and carve out the middle pulp of the peppers, leaving their shell behind.  Drop stuffed peppers into a saucepan of boiling water.  Let them sit for fifteen minutes, or until they've grown soft.

Meanwhile, mix the quinoa, black beans, Latin cheese, cilantro, onion, corn, and a bit of salsa.  After having allowed the peppers to cool, stuff them with the stuffing and place in a baking dish.  Pour the remaining salsa over the peppers and into the baking dish.  Top with parmesan cheese.  Bake for approximately 30 minutes.