While the husband and I certainly enjoy celebrating love, we both despise the overcrowded commercialized “thing” that Valentine’s day has become. In the words of John Mayer, “love is a verb” and one that should be acted upon daily, not just once a year. That being said, we celebrate this holiday a bit different than most, and always stay in and cook together and doing something fun at home, focusing our time on one another. We generally take a picture or two as well as is evidenced below 🙂 There are cards of course…and our favorite candies – Haribo Gummy Bears for me & Starburst Jelly Beans for him – we are quite predictable in our favorite treats 😉 but the true star of the evening is fixing something up in the kitchen together while we sip on some delightful beverages! This year we made stuffed peppers for the first time, pairing them with avocado slices and pumpkin (yes pumpkin!) salsa and chips. This is one that will certainly be going into the rotation!
Ingredients:
- 1 pound ground venison (or beef or turkey!)
- 1 large onion (diced)
- 1 can black beans (rinsed & drained)
- 1 can corn (rinsed & drained)
- 2-3 tablespoons taco seasoning
- 4 large bell peppers (de-seeded – also cut the bottom to make flat)
- 2 cups of shredded cheese (we use Mexican or Taco blend)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In an 8×8 baking pan, place your peppers upright and drizzle with olive oil.
- Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until peppers are blistering and getting slightly translusent around the edges. Set aside.
- While baking, get out a large skillet & saute your onions in olive oil until soft.
- Add in your ground meat and the taco seasoning, cooking until the meat is cooked through.
- Add in the beans and corn and stir to combine, cooking for about 5 additional minutes.
- Remove from heat.
- Scoop the filling inside the peppers, filling to the top.
- Place in oven for 5 minutes, then remove and top each pepper generously with cheese.
- Place back in over for another 5 minutes, then remove & serve!
*you will have extra filling and leftover cheese – just get 3-4 extra peppers and you have a second meal or enough to serve a large dinner party in one sitting!
Here is a picture from our lovely Valentine’s dinner at home 🙂
How do you prefer to celebrate holidays?
