Unstuffed Pepper Soup

When we stopped a the Sharp Edge Creekhouse near Pittsburgh in 2009, the soup of the day was Stuffed Pepper.  We loved it, and I thought "I could do that."   I now make this soup about 3X as often as I make stuffed peppers.  It freezes well, so it's a good dish to make at the end of the summer when bell peppers are cheap or friends are giving away excess from their gardens.

The local meat market had just started carrying grass fed ground beef, so I tried that for this recipe.  It didn't have the fat content listed, but I would guess it was close to 15%.  Enough fat that I didn't have to add oil to brown the onions, but not so much that draining the meat seemed necessary.

1 pound ground beef
2 small onions, chopped (1 ~ 1 1/2 cups)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 ~ 2 t of Italian herb blend
1/2 ~ 1 t of oregano
1 T Worcestershire Sauce
1 T of Penzey's Pork Soup Base
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 c. water
10 ~ 12 oz of low sodium V-8 juice
15 oz. can chopped tomatoes (plain, low-sodium, or  fire-roasted)
1 c. of brown rice
2 -3 bell peppers (green, red, or a mix).


In a Dutch Oven, brown half of the ground beef and set aside on a plate.  Add the rest of the ground beef to the pot, and when it is cooked, add the onions.  Cook until the onions are translucent, and the beef in the pot is starting to brown.  Stir in the garlic, herbs, black pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and soup base.  (You don't have to completely break up the lump of soup base...it will dissolve later.)  Add the water, V-8 juice, and tomatoes.  Bring the soup to a boil and add the brown rice.  Cook ~ 45 minutes until the brown rice is tender.

Meanwhile, halve the bell peppers and remove the seeds.  Slice the peppers thinly, and then cut the slices in half cross-wise.

Taste the broth and add salt if necessary.  (Depending on the flavor of V-8 and the brand of tomatoes you use, you may not need any.)  Stir in the peppers, and cook for ~ 10 minutes.

If you store leftovers in the refrigerator, the rice will swell to make it more of a porridge than a soup.

Gluten Free Sandwich Bread and Faux Pumpernickel

I made this lovely loaf of sandwich bread using the recipe from Shauna James Ahern's book Gluten Free Girl Every Day.  I'm not going to post the recipe because she makes her living developing recipes, but I am going to rave about it. (Pardon the exclamation points.)

The finished product is light and crusty, slices beautifully (when cool) and toasts up beautifully.
It's >50% whole grain!
It's faster and easier to make than any of the GF bread mixes I've tried!
The loaf released from a pan that had merely been sprayed with olive oil!  Most of the bread mixes I've tried create an adhesive-like batter, which sticks unless I use solid fat (butter, coconut oil, or shortening) to grease the pan.

OK, raving over.   To provide a full and fair review, I will warn you that this recipe contains 3 eggs and 1/4 cup of butter, so it's not suitable for a vegan, low-fat, egg-free diet.  It's also a batter bread, and came out looking like it had been baked in a Pullman pan.

I made the loaf in the picture using buckwheat flour for the whole grain, and my  All Purpose blend, which is a recipe I got from the Shauna Ahern's blog, Gluten Free Girl and the Chef.  I sprinkled the top with golden flax seeds.  I also used my 4" x 10" bread pan, because the narrower, longer pan seems to work better for GF loaves.

The bread was so good that I immediately made a second loaf, adding 1 T of instant espresso, 1 T of cocoa powder, 1 t of caraway seeds and ~ 1 t of molasses.  It was a wonderful faux pumpernickel (faumpernickel?) for pastrami & Swiss cheese sandwiches.