My Lentil Soup Recipe by Shalene

I've made lentil soup a few times in my life, but always used my mother's recipe. She always got rave reviews, so I stuck with it. However, I wanted to make some today, and couldn't find my recipe. I also didn't have the ham hocks that she liked to use. So I struck out on my own today. Here is MY recipe (they are the best I've ever made, in my own humble opinion.)

Ingredients
1 lg yellow onion
1 lb of bacon
2 cloves of garlic (or 2-3 TBS of garlic powder, whichever you prefer)
2 14.5 oz cans Italian style Stewed Tomatoes
16 oz bag of lentils
5 cups water
2 beef boullion cubes (or 2 cups of beef broth)

Chop bacon into small pieces. Brown bacon in large pot, dice onion and garlic very small and cook with bacon. Add 5 cups of water (I did not drain the bacon first, but you may if you like.) Add rinsed lentils. Add juice from cans of Tomatoes, smash tomatoes into smaller chunks. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes. All done!! Very easy and not a lot of mess. Enjoy on those cool fall nights! Makes a great Sabbath prep meal too, since it makes a large pot of lentils. Blessings to you!!!

There is no "MORE" to this post.

MMM!!! Monday by Shalene

I have so many ideas of things that I would like to write about, but none are fully formed, so today, I am going to share a recipe that my mother and I used to compete with each other on. My mother originally shared the recipe with me, and I then tweaked it. Then she took my recipe and tweaked it, then I did the same and back and forth, until we have this recipe. It was a competition all in good fun, and in complete love. It was one of the areas where we really had fun with one another. We both used our families as guinea pigs, and though I don't get to make this recipe often anymore (bell peppers, unfortunately are not my family's favorite vegetable) I do still make it very rarely, because it's not a recipe that one would make every day, and I've gotten compliments on it. So here it is: my recipe for

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients

• 6-8 med bell peppers (use any color you wish, according to taste, but be sure they are round and squat)
• 1 1/2 lbs of lean ground beef (any ground meat will work- I invite you to experiment, in the spirit of this recipe tradition.)
• 1 med red or yellow onion, chopped fine
• 2-4 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped fine
• 3 Cans (14.5 oz size) Italian style stewed tomatoes
• 3-4 cups of Instant Rice (Minute Rice is best. Use 1/2 cup per pepper)
• Italian seasonings
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 1-2 Cups of grated Cheese (I use Mild Cheddar and Monterey Jack mixture)
• Water as needed

Directions
Wash peppers. Cut tops from peppers and remove all seeds and pulp from inside of pepper, set tops aside. Place peppers upside down in deep pot, on top of steamer basket, just covering steamer basket with water. Steam peppers over medium heat until cooked completely. Do not overcook.
Meanwhile, take chopped onion and garlic and saute until almost translucent in large pot. Remove any pepper "meat" from the tops you laid aside, and add to onion and garlic at the same time you add the meat. Add meat, and cook until browned completely. Seasoning meat with italian seasonings, salt and pepper to taste, while cooking. Drain all fat from meat. Return meat to pot.

Using a food processor (or your hands, though it's a bit messier) chop(or smash) stewed tomatoes and add to meat mixture, add all liquid from can as well. Bring just to a boil, on med high heat. Add instant rice, mix well. (if it looks as though there is not enough liquid for the rice to absorb and be fully cooked, you may add water at this point. Just add about a 1/4 cup at a time. Bring back to a boil, and then reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice is fully cooked.

When peppers are fully cooked, very carefully, using tongs, remove the peppers from pot and place top up in 13" X 9" baking pan (I like glass best, and suggest using a cooking spray on bottom and sides of pan) Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit. When rice mixture is fully cooked, spoon into peppers. I like to fill them about halfway, then spoon rice mixture directly into pan to hold them in place. Then filling them up the remainder of the way, until each pepper is full of rice mixture and pan is full as well. (Trust me, there will be more than enough rice mixure for this.) Sprinkle grated cheese over entire pan, and place in oven for no more than about 30 minutes. Let set about 10 minutes before serving. Serves 6-8 with leftover's for very tasty quesadillas- just put the rice mixture in a flour tortilla, with a little more cheese, and mmm, mmm, mmm!

This is a great Saturday meal, if like us, you choose to try to observe a Sabbath, complete with no serious food prep on Sundays. Even with a family of 6 we ALWAYS have leftovers. Enjoy, and hopefully for my next recipe sharing day, I will have pictures to go along with the recipe.