Foodie Friday! Mini Stuffed Peppers

My friend Elisabeth at Life, Love and the Pursuit of . . . made a version of stuffed peppers that made me want to make some of my own. You can find Elisabeth's version with cream cheese, shrimp and bacon here. Now since I'm allergic to shrimp and didn't want to use cream cheese I made my own version. My version of Mini Stuffed Peppers were AMAZING!

To make my version of Mini Stuffed Peppers you will need:

• Mini Sweet Peppers
• Bacon (optional, I made some with and some without the bacon
• White Rice 
• Ground beef
• Smoked paprika
• Salt and Pepper
• Onion

I decided to lightly toast the rice before adding liquid so I put 1 cup rice in a medium size pot and toasted the rice for a couple of minutes. I then added 2 cups water to the rice, turned the heat down and put the lid on the pot to allow the rice to continue cooking.

While the rice was cooking, I went ahead and chopped the onions and prepared the ground beef. I probably used 3/4 of a pound of ground beef to make the peppers. I also cleaned out the peppers. I wasn't sure how I wanted the peppers to look so for some of the peppers, I cut them lengthwise, others I just chopped off the caps. I used a spoon to remove the seeds and ribs of each tiny pepper.

Once the rice was finished, I threw the ground beef and onion into a skillet and seasoned with salt, pepper and Smoked paprika. (Smoked Paprika may very well be my new favorite seasoning I use it with almost EVERY meat.)

After the ground beef was fully cooked, I combined the rice and beef to make the filling for each pepper. I added a liberal amount of filling to each pepper and wrapped a few of them in bacon. I placed the peppers on a baking sheet with a wire rack (so the heat could go all the way around the pepper) and placed them in a 425 degree oven for about 8 minutes. The bacon was cooked and the peppers were soft.

These things came out and were absolutely amazing. I was asked to make more almost immediately. This is definitely a dish I will make again. 

Opening up to hypnosis

   Working where I do has certain benefits including hypnosis.Until this point in my life I've been skeptical of hypnosis. I didn't think it would work. But I'm seeing results in people I work with. This one man, J, went to go see a hypnotist to help with his smoking habit-- after seeing the hypnotist, he quit smoking and hasn't felt the desire to smoke. If it can help someone stop smoking, maybe it can help me with my weight. So I've decided to be open to the idea and make an appointment. I'll let you know what happens. Hopefully the hypnosis will work and I'll finally be on the way to my weight-loss goals.

Talk to you soon!

Amberdenise