Dinnercraft helps bring your (and our) protracted adolescence to an end. Our authors cover topics ranging from cooking and eating, to home and garden, to crafting and DiY, and all the rest of the things you find yourself caring about these days.
Stuffed peppers mean nothing to me. I have no attachment to them whatsoever. We never had them in my house growing up. I made them last night simply because we had the ingredients in the refrigerator and pantry. I was, as the dads like to say “televisioning the fridge” trying to concoct a plan from the ingredients before my eyes when I realized it was like a math problem bubble in a grammar school classroom. 4 + 3 = 7 while 4 x 3 = 12. It was only a matter of which formula I was prepared to attempt. This is how I rolled:
Ingredients
Method
In a deep saute pan I sweat the diced onions in oil, added thinly sliced chilies and minced garlic then the wine splash, ground beef and tomato paste, slowly and deliberately and in that order until browned and incorporated and moist. In a pot of salted, boiling water I dunked the peppers until they were bright orange, about three minutes, cut off their tops and popped out the remaining seeds. I cooked rice with a few drops of oil and a cube of bouillon then combined about half with the beef mixture. I filled the peppers, oiled inside, and placed them in a Dutch oven with an inch of water in the bottom. At the last minute I impulsively added a spoonful of store-bought salsa to the top of each pepper, a handful of cheese and popped them in the the oven at 350 for 50 minutes, and when they were done they were glorious.
We do not have the luxury of shopping daily for fine ingredients. We source the best vegetables and meat available (often from Costco) and try to MacGyver interesting dinners all week. For now the focus is on simplicity, layering flavor and mastering the basics, which is both very pleasing and methodical. If some day stuffed peppers become a fixture on our family dinner schedule we will fondly recall that they were born of necessity during the Mexico adventure early in our marriage.
Every single element was perfect. But was the whole greater than the sum of its parts? Last night at 7:17, with the assistance of a glass of Soave, I constructed a peerless tower of power: …
I cocked up dinner once again last night. I swear it wasn’t my fault. I had planned to bake bread and do poached eggs with asparagus and Camembert (awesome, right?) but there was a mishap. The dough …
When I was a child, I was a judgemental and snotty little punk.
At some point in time, I had incubated and hatched the notion that kids with glasses were either:
a)mentally handicapped
b) unloved, unwanted, socially inept …
We found beautiful fruit, vegetables and eggs at the mercado earlier today. In order to compensate for overindulging at our favorite neighborhood taqueria last night and a pizza feast of epic proportions planned for tomorrow, …
If you’re looking for something super simple, tasty and slightly lowbrow to make for dinner tonight, have I got the recipe for you. Populism! This is how I did it last night:
Ingredients
broccoli
italian sausage
penne pasta
olive oil
garlic
dry …
Last night I cooked a chicken upside down. No, not to serve some satanic cult of poultry, merely because I am scatterbrained. Fortunately, it turns out that I am incapable of ruining a roast chicken and we …
‘Cause it was friggin’ delicious. Also, chicken thighs! Here they’re called muslo de pollo and I’ve had a package of these mofos in the freezer since before Christmas. I’ll admit, I was intimidated. Although of late I’ve become …
A bit of business to get out of the way before we begin: this is not “authentic” poc-chuc, and we’re not trying to make authentic poc-chuc. Why is that? The ubiquitous Yucatecan restaurant dish, which …
People often ask me if I’m planning on having any more kids, or if I’m going to attempt the clichéd ”try for a boy” because I have two daughters.
The answer? No.
Finis! Kaput! Done!
Not only do I …
The cuisine of Yucatan, Mexico, sometimes comes under fire from the uninitiated for being too subtle in flavor, too basic, and ultimately, not “Mexican” enough. And while it can sometimes lack the pizazz (”Pizazz?” What …