Provencal Stuffed Peppers and Minestrone Soup with Pesto

On Sunday I decided to make two dishes:  Provencal Stuffed Peppers and Minestrone Soup.  This is how it turned out!

Provencal Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 red onion, sliced

1 zucchini, diced
4 ounces mushrooms, slived
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 4-ounce can chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
scant 1/3 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
4 large yellow bell peppers
1/2 cup red Leicester or Cheddar cheese, finely grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh basil leaves, to garnish

1)  Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion, succhini, mushrooms and garlic and cook gently for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2)  Stire in he tomatoes and tomato paste, then bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly.  REmove from the heat and stir in the pine nuts, basil, and seasoning.  Set aside.  

3)  Cut the peppers in half lengthwise and seed them.  Blanch in a pan of boiling water for about 3 minutes.  Drain and dry.  

4)  Place the peppers in a shallow ovenproof dish and fill them with the vegetable mixture.

5)  Cover the dish with foil and ake for 20 minutes.  Uncover, sprinkle each pepper with grated cheese and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubling.  Garnish with basil leaves and serve.  This dish is delicious served with crunchy garlic bread.  

 

This dish was a lot of fun to make.  I love bell peppers and the mixture of onions, mushrooms, zucchini, and tomatoes was just delicious!  The only problem was that I think the pine nuts were a big too overpowering.  I would have cut the amount of pine nuts in quarter or even just lightly sprinkled them because their flavor was so nutty and strong that they completely overpowered the rest of the lighter flavors.  But, all in all, it was a success.  

I'm no expert meal planner nor do I have the talents of  planning courses and dishes that compliment each other.  The reason I chose this next recipe to go with the stuffed peppers is that they both had the common ingredient of basil, and I thought a nice soup would go well with the lighter stuffed pepper dish.  So, I made minestrone with pesto.

Minestrone Soup with Pesto

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 leek, sliced

2 carrots, finely chopped

1 celery rib, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice

6 1/4 cups hot vegetable stock or water, or a combination of both

1 bay leaf

1 sprig of fresh thyme, or 1/3 teaspoon dried thyme

3/4 cup peas, fresh or frozen

2-3 zucchini, finely chopped

1)  Heat the oil in the saucepan.  Stir in he onion and leek, and cook for 5-6 minutes.  (I forgot to get a leek when I went shopping, so I had to leave that ingredient out...).  Add the carrots, celery and garlic, and cook over moderate heat for 5 minutes.  Add the potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes more.

2)  Pour in the hot stock or water and stir well (I used all stock).  Add the hers and season with salt and pepper.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook for 10-12 minutes.  

3)  Stir in the peas, if fresh, and the zucchini.  Simmer for 5 minutes.  Add the frozen peas, if using, and the tomatoes.  Cover the pan ans summer for 5-8 minutes.    

4)  About 10 minutes before serving, uncover the pan and stir in the beans.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Stir in the pesto sauce.  Simmer for another 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and let stand for a few minutes.  Serve with the grated Parmesan cheese.

The soup was, might I say, amazing.  The pesto was just absolutely phenomenal!  Even with the pesto, the soup just blended so well and all the flavors were really nice!  Definitely one of my favorites so far.  I ended up not using potatoes (I had a bag that I thought were good, but turned out to be growing into plants already!) so it was actually a healthier, lower-carb version.  To make up for the potatoes I simply double the amount of zucchini I used.  

You may notice that I have a hard time following a recipe exactly as it is written--that's because when I don't have an ingredient (even though I went shopping, haha) I just make do with what I have around and it usually turns out fine.  

Stay tuned for my next cooking adventure--I was forced to take three days off work this week (without pay, we're on shooting hiatus) and so I will probably use part of that time to try something new.