Stuffed Peppers | Oct 22, 1935
The World’s Kitchen Log – 10/22/35
By Mrs. Sam P. McBirney
I am going to tell you what she served three of us the other night. It was a great plenty; it tasted good, it had all the necessary food elements; it cost next door to nothing and she had prepared two meals with the work of one because when she bought her meat she allowed for enough to stuff large, thick, fleshy, green peppers with the left over mixture. Understand, it did not HAPPEN to be a leftover; it was designed for such. Also, it was not served the following night. She skipped one and by that time it was like a brand new dish.
MENU
Main dish of rice, ground meat, seasonings and canned tomatoes. Head lettuce with garlic-flavored French dressing. Hot biscuits with raspberry jam. Fresh Pears. Milk.
MAIN DISH – Over a moderate flame, in a heavy skillet, cook a diced onion or several diced onions until slightly brown. Use bacon fat, suet, butter, or what have you. Add one pound of ground meat. (Just a word about choice of this. Do not get extravagant and use round steak when just about the least expensive cut that your pet butcher can find for you will do the job perfectly. Remember about using beef heart for substitution for any ground beef. You will like it and the last I know it was only 17 cents a pound with no waste.)
In the meantime, perhaps in the morning before you go to work or the night before when you are cooking dinner, cook one cup of rice. Boil it or steam it as you desire. If it seems packed do not worry, although I hope you have learned how to cook it better than that.
To the skillet of meat, add one No. 2 can of tomatoes, the cooked rice, salt and pepper, one-half to one whole teaspoon of chili powder. Cook up well, just mix thoroughly, pour one-half into a baking dish, cover with grated cheese and bake in a 350-degree oven for about 30 to 40 minutes.
Pour the rest of the mixture into a refrigerator dish to cool, cover and place in refrigerator to be used two days later as a stuffing for the green pepper. In preparing these choose the large, thick-fleshed peppers. Cut them in halves right through the stem. AT NO TIME REMOVE THE STEM. It completes a perfectly holding shell if left in. Cover pepper halves with boiling water, cover and let stand or boil about tree minutes ONLY. Remove seed, fill with mixture, and cover tops with grated cheese, buttered crumbs or nothing. Place in baking dish and bake in 350-degree oven about 30 minutes.
The only place where I had a word to say was the French dressing. I suggested that she needed the garlic flavor in the meat. Otherwise the salad might have been flat.
When she made her biscuits out came her pastry canvas, clean as a pin, with the knitted rolling pin cover folded within the canvas. The biscuits were made from hard wheat flour because she has not yet found soft wheat flour up here and consequently were just cause she did not have a place to keep the rolling pin clean with it patted out with no kneading.
The raspberry jam she made herself last summer, using commercial pectin, which left the color beautiful and the flavor perfect. Yes, I know some of you do not approve of this. All I ask of you is try it next summer.
AUNT CHICK
