Tag Archives: stuffed peppers

Georgia O’Keefe Should Have Painted Figs

My too-dry-dried figs sat on my desk for quite a few days before going into storage.  So I had a lot of time to look at them.  And it came to me one day that they looked like small mean vaginas with teeth.  I put them away the next morning.

Can I offer you a fig?

I didn’t photograph my Thanksgiving dinner.  I cooked for three people.  I missed having my sister with us.  Needless to say – we kept our meal simple and we watched Miss Marple while we ate.  Here’s what we had:

Casserole: poblano peppers stuffed with tofu, corn, and zucchini on a bed of green rice (rice with pureed tomatillos, cilantro, and lime juice) and topped with a cashew cream sauce.

Mashed sweet potatoes: plain for my mom but for ours I added salt, pepper, and butter.

Salad: romaine lettuce, apples, walnuts, and cranberries with a vinaigrette.

The salad and yams were predictably good.

The casserole was an experiment – something I thought up to use the last of the summer peppers and tomatillos and summer squash.  It turned out really good – it was delicious!  Except that I have come to realize once again that I really don’t like peppers and can’t eat them.  Except for pickled jalapenos, crushed red pepper, and cayenne – peppers do NOT agree with me.  They made me burp for hours.  So if I did this casserole again I would not use the peppers.  I would just do a bottom layer of the green rice, then do a layer of the tofu and vegetables, topped with the cashew cream.  I’d eat that again in a second.  I don’t love rice, as you may have observed from the lack of it in my recipes.  I don’t hate it but I never crave it and generally speaking – I’d be fine never eating it again.  Even so – the rice layer of the casserole was really good!  I think what I liked about it was the tanginess of the tomatillos and because I precooked the rice and then mixed it with the puree – it was a little bit like risotto – not fluffy and dry – but not soupy either.  It was perfect.

About cashew cream: it’s really good stuff!  I have discovered that you need a blender that doesn’t suck to get it really smooth and creamy.  If you have a blender that has issues with blending things you may have to do small batches and add a little extra water to it.  I could smell my blender motor burning.  Nice.  But it managed to get the job done with a lot of coaching.  Cashew cream is rich without being heavy and it browns nicely like cheese does.  I definitely want to play with this again.  It’s certainly not a low fat food so using it won’t be less fattening than using cream or cheese – but it is a really nice vegan option and it is full of good protein and nutrition.  Biggest problem is that cashews cost a fortune.  So I won’t be using this a lot – but it’s worth experimenting with some more.

Over all we had a really nice Thanksgiving.  If you want to hear all about my thankfulness you can read my post Gratitude for All of You over at Better Than Bullets.

So how was your Thanksgiving?  I hope you all had a good time with people you love!