The First Supper

I finally cooked my first dinner since January. It was a tough day on Sunday. I felt like I was constantly moving at 100 mph the entire day and the thought of also having to make dinner just made me want to cry.

But I did it. I f'n made dinner.

I decided on 2 items from my awesome Veganomicon cookbook. Being so out of the dinner loop for the last 6 months kind of hindered my ability to pair together a side dish and a main dish. Plus I had to ease myself into this whole cooking dinner thing. Luckily - the cookbook has a section in the back with recommended dinners that pair together items and recommend desserts. They did the work for me! I love this book.

I decided to try my hand at the Creole Stuffed Peppers with a side of Messy Rice. I figured it sounded spicy enough for the Mr to enjoy and I thought that it would be necessary since this was a vegan meal.

Holy shit. I forgot about my poor time management skills when it comes to preparing more than 1 dish. I can't figure out how to properly time items so that everything cooks together and will be ready around the same time. Plus I felt rushed. I didn't realize the prep and cook time estimates were an hour for each item and we were both starving. Son of a…

I was yelling at The Mr to take some pictures as I was cooking because I needed to share my meal with the blogosphere.

For those of you interested, here are the recipes (with pictures!) and instructions (sprinkled with some of my commentary in italics):

Creole Stuffed Peppers

4 lg bell peppers
2 tbsp olive oil
1 med yellow onion, finely chopped
2 jalapenos, cut in half, seeded and thinly sliced
1 cup finely diced carrots
4 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
2 dried bay leaves
2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
2 tsp paprika
3 sprigs fresh thyme
I cheated and used dry thyme.
1 tsp salt
1 (15-oz) can diced tomatoes
2 (15-oz) cans black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
Can someone tell me the purpose of parsley? I don' think it tastes like anything. I usually skip this… and I did for this recipe because I wasn't going to shell out money and time for something that adds nothing to the dish

Preheat oven to 350 and grease 9x13 inch casserole dish with a little olive oil.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Cut peppers in half lengthwise and remove insides.
The actual cookbook tells you to keep at least one half of the pepper with the stems for aesthetics. I did and it didn't make it look any more appealing and was kind of annoying when I was eating.

Submerge peppers in boiling water and cover for 5 minutes. Drain immediately and rinse with cold water.

Dumping a gigantic pot of bowling water filled with bell pepper halves into a collander sucks. The steam rising from the pot burned my hands. My cries of "Shit! Dammit! Ouch!" didn't seem to rouse The Mr. from the couch though.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Saute onions, jalapenos and carrots for 10 min. You want the veggies browned (esp carrots). Add garlic about 5 minutes into the cooking process.
Yeah - always read at least one sentence ahead of what you're supposed to do. I didn't read that garlic part until after the 10 minutes was up. Who writes things this way?

Isn't it purdy? As I was prepping the onions, carrots, etc - I remembered why I hated cooking. Chopping stuff sucks. And it's messy.

Add bay leaves, other herbs and spices and salt. Saute for 1 more minute.

Add tomatoes and peas, stir and cover. Cook for 10 minutes. Mix in parsley.
F the parsley!

Remove bay leaves and thyme sprigs.
Yay for dry thyme! I only had to burn my fingers twice trying to fish out the bay leaves

Spoon a little less than ½ cup of the veggie mix into each pepper half.
I didn't pay attention to how much I was spooning into the pepper halves. I just filled them up. I don't think having more than ½ cup will ruin it for you.



Place pepper halves in casserole dish and bake for 25 minutes.
I actually just put the empty pepper halves in the dish and filled them while they were in the dish. It just made more sense to me to do it this way.

As I was prepping the Creole Stuffed Peppers, I had also started preparing…

Messy Rice

1 tbsp vegetable oil
½ cup finely chopped yellow onion
2 tsp whole coriander seeds crushed
2 gloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp tomato paste
½ tsp salt
Several pinches of freshly ground black pepper
1 cup of jasmine rice (or white rice)
I didn't have either of these items which is shocking since I'm ½ korean. You'd think I'd always have white rice in stock but I only had brown rice. I learned an important lesson about the difference between white rice and brown rice
1 ½ cups water

Preheat a med-sized sauce pan over med heat.
Saute onions in the oil for about 5 min. until softened and lightly browned. This is where good time management is crucial. I was so engrossed with the peppers, I kind of forgot about this and burned the onions slightly.

Cooking things in tandem is a bad idea unless you have a game plan which, of course, I did not.

Add the crushed coriander and garlic. Saute for another 2 minutes.
Since I had already burned the onions, it only made sense to also burn the garlic.

Add tomato paste and stir it around for about a minute to get it well distributed. At this point, I had to ask the Mr to step in for just a moment. I set off the smoke alarm with the burnt onions and garlic.

Add the salt, pepper rice and water then stir. Cover and bring to a boil.
Ooh water! I wished I would have added this sooner.


Once mixture is boiling, stir again and lower heat to as low as it will go (to prevent sticking).

This was the point where I breathed a sigh of relief. I mastered the in tandem cooking.

Cover and cook for 35-40 minutes until rice is thoroughly cooked.

It is important to note that cooking brown rice is entirely different than cooking white rice. Who knew? I had to add a lot more water for the rice to cook thoroughly. It was a good thing The Mr did a quick check on it or we would have eaten some very crunchy messy rice.

And voila!

I need to work on my presentation skills, obviously.


The Mr enjoying this fabulous vegan dinner… filled with my sweat and tears.

Oh and an important lesson I learned (aside from needing to improve on time management) is that if you're handling garlic and any spices, take your contacts out FIRST. Although I washed my hands, I apparently infected my contacts with awful burning agents because when I went to put then in the next morning? I thought I blinded myself. As I whimpered quiety (to not wake The Mr), I spent a minute trying to pry my eye open so I could remove the bad contact lens. Ouch!