1. Debbie and I were the hosts for tonight's family dinner. Late last week, I decided I'd take charge of the menu. I haven't enjoyed heavier foods much this summer -- in fact, I've avoided them -- and I thought a dinner built around stuffed bell peppers would be light and delicious.
I had never prepared stuffed bell peppers. As I contemplated how I might cook them, I suddenly wondered if I might be able to make them in an at least a quasi-Greek or Mediterranean style. I grabbed my copy of The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook from America's Test Kitchen and, sure enough, I found a recipe for stuffed bell peppers that looked like something I could make.
I prepared a pot of jasmine rice and assembled the other ingredients: ground beef, finely chopped onion, minced garlic, minced fresh ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin, oregano, diced tomatoes, currants, feta cheese, and slivered almonds.
I began by cooking the finely chopped onion until it softened and adding the garlic, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and cumin to the onions. The fragrance of those aromatics got excited in about half a minute. I added the ground beef to this mixture and cooked it until no longer pink.
In the meantime, I boiled a few quarts of salted water in the Dutch oven and put nine bell peppers in the water and let them cook for about five minutes, softening the peppers. I lifted each bell pepper out with tongs and placed them on paper towels to drain.
I also put three cups of cooked rice in a large bowl.
Once the ground beef was brown, I added the drained diced tomatoes, reserve juice from the tomatoes, and oregano, transferred this mixture to the bowl with the rice in it, added feta cheese, and the slivered almonds I had roasted, and folded it all together.
I then stuffed the peppers and put them in the oven at 350 degrees for a half an hour, turned off the oven, and kept them there until I served them.
I had a blast cooking this entree.
It made my day.
2. Molly, Christy, Carol, Paul, Cleo, and, after a while, Riley came over to our patio around 5:30. Debbie made a refreshing lime vodka punch. Christy brought over a rolled lettuce appetizer combining cheeses, salami, lettuce, green onion, and dressing. In a little while, I put a stuffed pepper on each person's plate and we dug into Carol's grilled garden vegetables and Debbie's cabbage cucumber salad.
To my delight, it was a light and flavorful dinner. The cabbage salad, grilled vegetables, and stuffed peppers worked together perfectly.
We had all kinds of things to talk about ranging from the Wildcats' football schedule to Molly's use of an e-bike to some excellent movie talk. We learned about Paul serving an apprenticeship as a tow truck driver and he told us some of his observations about flying to Eugene and back, via Oakland and San Jose.
For dessert, Debbie had found frozen mango juice bars, adding to the dinner's emphasis on lightness and refreshing food.
3. After our dinner party broke up, Debbie went to bed fairly early because she'll be up and at 'em fairly early in the morning to go to work and have her first day of class with her new 3rd graders.
I decided to watch some more Columbo.
I watched the second episode of Season 2.
To my surprise and delight, the episode featured John Cassavetes. Peter Falk and Cassavetes were close friends and appeared in six movies together, several of them independent films directed by Cassavetes. So, knowing a little bit about their history, it was fun to see them together in this episode about a womanizing orchestra conductor played by Cassavetes.
This episode featured other great guest actors: Blythe Danner, Myrna Loy, Pat Morita, and George Gaynes.
I had no idea until Sunday that Columbo regularly featured a well-known actor as the episode's villain and that so many supporting roles were played by well-known actors.
Just like when I cooked stuffed peppers, I'm having a blast watching these various actors pop up on Columbo. It's a joy to go back and watch these episodes since I missed them all when they came out starting about fifty years ago.
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