roasted bell pepper | Cecile's Cuisine

I love, love vegetables. I love to eat them, but I often find myself at loss on how to prepare them. Of course, you can grill, roast, steam, saute all your vegetables, and you can vary the spices that you use, but I am not very creative when cooking vegetables and like many of you I end up making the same vegetables over and over again.

I cannot remember where I saw a recipe of stuffed zucchinis, but I thought why not stuffed them with vegetables instead of meat to make it a truly vegetable dish. So here it is :

Ingredients for 4 :

4 medium sized zucchinis about 4-5 inches long
1 small purple onion
1 whole roasted bell pepper ( a big jar can be found in grocery store or at Costco)
1/2 cup of parmesan, swiss cheese or even feta ( optional)
1 tsp of demarle rosemary and thyme spice
1/4 tsp of salt
1/8 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp of olive oil

If you have not purchased roasted bell peppers, you will need to roast the fresh ones yourself. It is quite easy. Since it just takes times, you may as well prepare a few more to keep in your fridge for more recipes. Slice the bell peppers in half. Place then onto the silpat skin up, and roast them for 30 minutes at 450. When they are roasted, let them cool first by placing a silpat over them to keep them from drying up. When they are somewhat cooler, place them into a plastic bag and let them cool completely. The reason why you will want to place them into a bag, is to allow them to “perspire” and it will be easier for you to peel the skin off.
After 30 minutes to an hour, when they are completely cool. Carefully peel of the skin. It should come off fairly easy. Et voila.
Slice and dice one whole bell pepper and place it into a large bowl.
Rinse the zucchinis thoroughly under running water. Then with a sharp knife, slice the zucchini in half in its length. With a melon grater, or a little spoon, grate the inside of the zucchinis. Place the “meat” of the zucchinis onto a chopping block, and chop the zucchini “meat” finely. Empty it into a bowl where you would have already placed the diced bell pepper. Set aside.
Chop the onion very finely.
In a large saute pan, warm up a tbsp of olive oil and when the oil is warm, saute the onion until it becomes a dark amber color.
Empty the onion in the bowl where you would have placed the zucchini’s “meat”.
Add the salt, pepper, 1 tsp of rosemary and thyme and 1/2 cup of cheese ( optional). Mix well.
Fill the zucchinis with the mixture and place them into a deep flexipan that you would have placed onto a medium perforated sheet.
Cook for 20-30 minutes ( it will depend how big they are. the larger, the longer they will need). Enjoy!!!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!

Stuffed Zucchinis with Bell Pepper and Purple Onion

Servings: 4-6 people
Time: 20-30 minutes
Difficulty: Super easy
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Ingredients for 4 :

4 medium-sized zucchinis about 4-5 inches long
1 small purple onion
1 whole roasted bell pepper ( a big jar can be found in grocery store or at Costco)
1/2 cup of parmesan, swiss cheese or even feta ( optional)
1 tsp of demarle rosemary and thyme spice
1/4 tsp of salt
1/8 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp of olive oil

If you have not purchased roasted bell peppers, you will need to roast the fresh ones yourself. It is quite easy. Since it just takes times, you may as well prepare a few more to keep in your fridge for more recipes. Slice the bell peppers in half. Place then onto the silpat skin up, and roast them for 30 minutes at 450. When they are roasted, let them cool first by placing a silpat over them to keep them from drying up. When they are somewhat cooler, place them into a plastic bag and let them cool completely. The reason why you will want to place them into a bag, is to allow them to “perspire” and it will be easier for you to peel the skin off.
After 30 minutes to an hour, when they are completely cool. Carefully peel of the skin. It should come off fairly easy. Et voila.
Slice and dice one whole bell pepper and place it into a large bowl.
Rinse the zucchinis thoroughly under running water. Then with a sharp knife, slice the zucchini in half in its length. With a melon grater, or a little spoon, grate the inside of the zucchini. Place the “meat” of the zucchinis onto a chopping block, and chop the zucchini “meat” finely. Empty it into a bowl where you would have already placed the diced bell pepper. Set aside.
Chop the onion very finely.
In a large saute pan, warm up a tbsp of olive oil and when the oil is warm, saute the onion until it becomes a dark amber color. Empty the onion in the bowl where you would have placed the zucchini’s “meat”.
Add the salt, pepper, 1 tsp of rosemary and thyme and 1/2 cup of cheese ( optional). Mix well.
Fill the zucchinis with the mixture and place them into a deep flexipan that you would have placed onto a medium perforated sheet.
Cook for 20-30 minutes ( it will depend how big they are. the larger, the longer they will need). Enjoy!!!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!

After reading many of my entries, you may have noticed that:

1. I like to go grocery shopping every day so that I can get the freshest of ingredients.

2. I need to cook two meals a night because my family and I have different tastes.

3. I rather eat healthy.

4. I like to go to a store named Costco.

I am certain that you are finding very surprising the fact that I like such a store as French people like little boutiques and rather buy “a la piece” rather than in bulk. Well I love Costco because they have great products and the quality and the price is wonderful. It just happened that they also have the BEST fish in town. Their fish is fresh, it displays the packaging date, and it is twice as cheap as the grocery stores in town. On my routine trip to Costco, I was happy to find Mahi among their selection. Mahi at a reasonable price is a rare find! So guess what will be my dinner? Mahi Mahi.

I wanted to poach the Mahi and serve it with a citrus rice and a citrus compote but the lack of time made me use what I had on hand.

Ingredients for 2 people: 1 big piece of Mahi, 1 1/2 cups of roasted bell pepper salsa from Costco, 3/4 cup of white wine, 1/2 cup of brown rice, 1 1/2 cups of light broth, 1 small yellow onion diced very thinly, salt and pepper to taste.

I a small bowl, pour 1/2 cup of roasted red pepper salsa and 1/4 cup of white wine. Add 1/8 tsp of salt, 1/16 tsp of pepper. Stir well. Place the piece of Mahi Mahi in a ziploc bag, pour this mixture over it and place the bag in the fridge. Let it marinade for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the brown rice. You may cook the brown rice according to the package directions ( boiling water…) or you can cook the easy way and cook your rice in the round mold. Place the 1/2 cup of rice in the round mold, add 3/4 cup of warm broth in the round mold. Cover the round mold with the octogonal silpat and cook for 12 minutes. I want my rice al dente because I will cook it some more in the oven. If you want to cook your rice through, I would suggest cooking it for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the octogonal silpat and fluff up the rice. Place the marinated mahi over the rice. Cover the round mold again with the octogonal silpat and cook for 6-8 minutes in a warm oven at 375. It will achieve the same result as if you had poached your fish or cook it a l’etouffe.

While the Mahi is cooking, prepare the sauce that will go over your fish. You will need to first saute your onion in 1 tsp of olive oil. When the onions are golden and soft, add 1 tsp of flour and stir so as to brown the flour and coat the onions. Add 1/2 cup of warm broth, 1 cup of roasted bell pepper salsa and 1/2 cup of white wine. Bring to boil. Season to taste.

To serve the fish, spoon the rice on the plate first, then place the filet of Mahi on top and drizzle the sauce over the fish. Et voila!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!