Stuffed Pepper Stoup

This is my adaptation of a Rachel Ray recipe for Stuffed Pepper Stoup originally given to me by one of my best friends, Colleen.  Colleen aka Shorty as I like to call her.  I say that with tons of love! :)

Stoup = kind of a soup & kind of a stew.  That Rachel Ray sure knows how to make up some words.  Any who.....  This is a great recipe.  It's especially good in the fall/winter but what the heck...we have the central air on so I got to cooking!

Ingredients:
(my changes are in bold)

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil 
• 1 1/2 pounds ground beef sirloin  **I used ground sweet Italian sausage.  I think it adds a lot more flavor**
• Salt and black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice  **I chose to omit this**
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 large onion, cut into bite-size dice
• 3 green bell peppers, seeded and cut into bite-size dice
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 quart chicken stock
• 1 can crushed tomatoes (28 ounces)
• 1 cup orzo pasta
• 12-15 basil leaves, shredded or torn
• Grated Parmigiano Reggiano to garnish 

Heat a medium soup pot over medium-high heat with the oil. When the oil is hot, add beef/sausage (I as usual, sprinkled the sausage with Morton's Nature's Seasons) and season with salt, black pepper and allspice. Brown the meat for 5 minutes then add garlic, onion, peppers and bay leaf and cook for 7-8 minutes, until tender. 

Stir in stock and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add pasta and cook to al dente, 7-8 minutes. Turn off heat. Fold in basil.

Serve in shallow bowls with grated cheese.

They did not have any packs of ground sausage at the store so I just took them out of the casings.  Does anyone else find it annoying browning ground meats?  The part that annoys me is that you just have to stand there and constantly poke at the stuff to break it apart.  Ugh.  I know it's strange but I can't help it.  It annoys me!  So much so that I had to take pictures of each stage of the poking process.  Yup.  I'm going to make you look at them.

Poke.

 Poke.

 Poke.

See.  Exhausting.  

Don't forget to sprinkle that meat with my favorite stuff!

The way that I got my daughter to eat green peppers and onions when she was little was to make sure that they were sautéed until very, very soft.  Because of that, I always tend to sauté them sooner than the recipe states to make sure they are soft.  I find sometimes that the times given in recipes are always a lot shorter than what it takes me in reality.  Don't get me wrong, both my daughter and I now love raw peppers and onions.  So I guess my trick worked! But I still, out of habit, start them separately in some recipes.  Starting with the green peppers because they tend to take a smidge longer than the onions.

In a few minutes, add the onions.  It was starting to smell SO good in the kitchen!

 Toss them in with the sausage, along with the garlic.  Now if you were paying attention, the recipe calls for a bay leaf.  Which I forgot.  Shocker.  It also calls for torn basil leaves.  Again, I forgot.  Even with the new potted basil plant I bought THE DAY BEFORE sitting RIGHT there on the counter!  There's that 'Stephanie's Law' again.

 Add the broth and crushed tomatoes (the olive oil is in the picture simply because it's pretty and I love me some EVOO!).

 Stir and bring to a boil then add the lovely orzo pasta.

 Here's where I added some Italian Seasoning.  I'm guessing it was between 1/2 to 1 teaspoon.  Yup, I'm one of those cooks who just adds a pinch of this or a pinch of that without measuring.  So I took a picture because it's worth a thousand words.

 *A tip from me:  Although in my head I live in a huge, beautiful chef's kitchen with more storage and work space than anyone could possibly need.....the reality is that I do not. *sigh* So to save space, when I only partially use a box of pasta, I place the rest of the box in a baggie which I then put into a organizer type container in my cabinet.  The container takes up less space than all of those half used boxes.  Oh, and I should've used a smaller baggie.  Next time.

 Ciabatta bread.  Oh how I love thee.  Ciabatta garlic bread.  I feel faint.  Just look at that beautiful bread.

 No seriously.  Look closer at all of that loveliness.

 Now smother it with butter.  *I never said this was a healthy blog*  I should probably work on that.

 Now sprinkle on some awesome Tastefully Simple Italian Garlic Bread Seasoning and because we are garlic & garlic salt junkies in my house, just a super small sprinkling of the glorious Lawry's Garlic Salt.  Just a smidge.

 Told ya we love this stuff.  Normal people could probably do with half the butter and seasonings.  But oh was it super delicious!  My hips can attest to this fact.

 Meanwhile, back on the stoup front, this is what was cooking.  Yum.

 Ta da!  This is the end result!  My daughter's two friends, who were eating dinner with us, protested their love for this.  So that is all anyone needs who cooks.  Someone to enjoy it!

 Here it is again.  Just for good measure.  I apologize for the quality of the photos (not to mention the amount of them in this post) as they were all taken on my cell phone.  I do have a pretty decent camera but since I have not yet told anyone of this blog, I was a little apprehensive to start snapping away like some professional photographer.  I'll get there.  I promise.  Soon.  Baby steps.

Enjoy your stoup!

Until next time!

~Stephanie