Recipes Discovered

Greek Style Stuffed Peppers Recipe
Stuffed Dates Recipe
Greek House Dressing Recipe

Tonight’s dinner was definitely a Greek delight. Greek Style Stuffed Peppers, Stuffed Dates wrapped in Prosciutto, and a Greek House Salad with homemade dressing.

Have you ever seen a recipe that just seemed to healthy to be good? This recipe for Stuffed Peppers is one of those recipes. Lean ground beef, spinach, zucchini, and bulgur stuffed into a red pepper half and topped with tomatoes. I do like all of the ingredients though, so I tried it out. The recipe really couldn’t be any easier. Squeeze the water out of a package of frozen (but thawed out) spinach, grate a zucchini and mince an onion. Mix all the veggies together with lean ground beef (I used 93/7), bulgur, an egg and some seasonings. Cut some red peppers in half, seed them, and then stuff some of the meat mixture inside. Top the peppers with canned tomatoes and feta cheese. Simple. It takes a long time to bake though – 30 minutes covered and another 30 – 45 minutes uncovered. Theresults are so good though, it’s worth the wait. >> I couldn’t believe how good they tasted. The tomatoes on top kept the stuffing from drying out (although if it is still too dry for your taste, try adding some tomato paste to the stuffing) and the feta cheese adds a great tangy flavor. The peppers are very filling and satisfying as well. I was definitely full after eating one. When I was making the filling, 1/2 teaspoon of salt seemed like too much for some reason, so I only added a pinch. It definitely needs a 1/2 teaspoon though. The filling was a bit bland until I added more salt to it.

Since this this was a Greek feast dinner, and we recently had them as an appetizer at a Greek restaurant, I made stuffed dates to go along with our theme. I didn’t really have a recipe for them since I was just trying to mimic what we had, so I just made up my own. I sliced the side of the dates open and put a small piece of Gorgonazola cheese inside. Then a took thing stripes of prosciutto and wrapped around the dates. I put them on a baking sheet and baked them for about 10 minutes, until the prosciutto was crispy. They didn’t turn out quick like the restaurants, but they were still good. The sweet date and the salty prosciutto are a perfect match. The gorgonzola was a little strong though, so I might try a different cheese when I make them again. But overall, they were very tasty.

To round out our Greek feast, I made a Greek salad with homemade dressing. The salad was simple – just spinach (I know it’s not Greek, but I needed to use it up), cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, and some of the Gorgonzola cheese. The dressing was outstanding though. Red wine vinegar and olive oil mixed with a lot of spices truly mimics dressings I have had a Greek restaurants.