Reader Recipe: Stuffed Peppers

[Posted by Crabby]


This awesome looking Stuffed Bell Pepper recipe comes courtesy of Susan over at Nutrition, Fitness, Life.

She even included this picture, and if you're not hungry yet? Just hang on a second...



How 'bout now?

Anyway, rather than clutter up her post with a bunch of tedious musings on Stuffed Bell Peppers (and believe me I could--I have thoughts and opinions about EVERYTHING, including stuffed bell peppers) I'll turn it directly over to her. Thanks Susan! --Crabby


Hello everyone, and a big thank you to Crabby and Merry for inviting me as a guest on their blog! (I did take off my shoes.) I'm very honored, and I have to say that the cupcakes look even bigger from up here!

But now on to the recipe (it doesn't involve cupcakes)...

I concocted this version of the stuffed pepper while playing in the kitchen one day and was pleased with the results. I used brown rice for a healthier twist and chose lean, ground sirloin. Tofu would work as a replacement for the meat, though. You could also replace the tomato sauce with chopped tomatoes, which I bet would taste heavenly if fresh from the garden!

This recipe serves 6*, so please feel free to adjust the recipe if cooking for fewer people. Then again, these make for a good lunch the next day. :)

• 3 bell peppers (green, red, yellow… any color will do)


• 1 cup water


• ½ cup uncooked brown rice


• ¼ tsp salt


• ½ tsp olive oil or nonstick cooking spray


• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped


• 1 pound ground sirloin or ground turkey


• 1 cup corn (frozen works great)


• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped


• 2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce


• 1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce


• 2 tsp Italian seasoning


• Salt and pepper to taste


• 1 cup shredded low-fat cheese (any flavor)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).

Combine water, rice, and ¼ tsp salt in saucepan. Cover, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook until rice has absorbed the water and is tender – about 30 minutes.

As rice is cooking:
Rinse peppers and cut in half vertically, or cut just the top off. Remove the stem, seeds, and the membranes inside the peppers. Set aside.

In a large pan/skillet over medium heat, add oil or spray pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add chopped onions, and cook just until slightly tender, about 4 minutes. Remove onions to a dish, and set aside.

Place the ground meat in that same pan and cook until evenly browned. Drain fat.**

Add onions, corn, garlic, Worcestershire, tomato sauce, and seasonings to meat. Cook on medium-low heat. Add rice and gently combine. Turn heat to very low.

Fill large pot with warm water that has been salted and bring to a boil. Immerse peppers in water for 2 minutes and remove from water. Set peppers in a large baking dish with hollowed side up.

Fill each pepper with meat and rice mixture. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Any leftover mixture can be stored in a container and used with salsa as a topping for tortilla chips!

Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and lightly golden brown.

Let cool for a few minutes and dig in!

*Cutting just the tops of each pepper will provide a pretty dish for the stuffing and result in one, hearty serving. You can increase the number of peppers from 3 to 4 if using this method.

**I like to pour off any grease from meat into a used container, such as an old pasta sauce jar. Then I wipe off the side of the pan with a paper towel. Be careful about draining grease directly into your sink as the grease can harden and clog the drain. And please keep in mind that hot grease can cause nasty burns! Be careful not to spill any on yourself!

Exercise Equipment: We Got Some!

[By Crabby]

You know how I'm always griping about going to the gym? Well, as many of you have discovered, if you have stuff at home, you don't have to. Voila, no more sweltering temperatures or frustrating equipment or old people kicking your ass!

So in this week's give-away, courtesy of Sportsmith, you get the chance to win one of three lovely Fitness Thingies you can use at home.

Would you like the Sportstep, which is similar to a Bosu balance trainer?

(Sorry, perky gym playmates are not included. And no, that object in the lower left is NOT a complimentary super-sized botox injection.)

Or perhaps you'd like a sporty blue 56" aerobic mat?

(Ankle cuffs and boy-toy sold separately).


Or, here we go, maybe you'd prefer the pilates power ring?

So is anyone else (who is not a Pilates Person) totally mystified as to what the hell this thing is? It's too small for a hula hoop and too big for a nose ring and too hollow for a frisbee. I'm sure it's fun and all, but what on earth does it DO? Note: for bonus points (see rules below) you'll get a chance to tell me.

And sure, I could google and find out, or just ask the sponsor, but what fun would that be?

Now on to the Contest and the Rules. ATTENTION: they're a bit different this time, so you may want to actually read them. It'll only take a minute...

Photo by Whatknot

CONTEST RULES:

Alas, prizes can only be shipped to U.S. residents. But...

I'm thinking if you don't live in the U.S., you could still enter! Why would you do that? Well, if you won, you could designate that your prize go to a U.S. friend. You won't get the thingy itself, but you'll get a chance to be generous, which is fun too. If you don't have an "In Real Life" U.S. friend (and these are highly over-rated), perhaps you have a U.S. Blog Friend whose email address you know or could obtain off their blog? We can work it out that a prize goes to them instead. However, sorry, no imaginary friends. You'll just have to give them imaginary prizes.

This means, however, two different sets of instructions:

Instructions for US residents: Just leave a comment saying which Thingy you'd like if you won, and FOR AN EXTRA BONUS ENTRY, tell us what you think Crabby might do with a Pilates Ring--even if it's not your prize of choice.

Instructions for non-US residents: leave a comment and let us know that you don't live in the US but that you're playing for someone else. And likewise, for a second entry credit, get creative and tell Crabby just what she can do with that Pilates Ring!

After the entries are assigned either one number (regular entries) or two numbers (bonus pilates ring entries), our sophisticated Statistical Analysis Department will pick the winner--which will be announced Wednesday morning the 23rd. If you have won, Email us at Crabby McSlacker at gmail dot com. (No spaces). Please, you must claim your prize by midnight EST on Thursday the 24th or we give it away again. (And if you are International, please try to round up the email address, and even better, the mailing address and prize choice of your beneficiary ASAP after you discover you've won).

Thanks for playing (and for stopping by Cranky Fitness)!

UPDATE: The contest is closed now and we have a winner! But check back Friday for another giveaway.

The post without a title

[By Merry]

So close to Friday.
Almost there.
Must... hang... on...

Hang on a minute. What kind of post is this? Where are the chipper puns? The quirky health studies? The fun Fail photos? It doesn't even have a proper title! Bring Crabby back! We want a real post!

The headache is taking up most of the front part of the brain, where all the serious thinking is usually done, so my mind is in trivia mode.

I know gas is expensive


... but this is ridiculous
(I don't know if you can see, but the horse is on a treadmill, which powers the vehicle. Literally horsepower.)

Winner of the Addictive Game award of the week:

Bubbleshooter.
Damn that game. Be warned that this game is highly addictive and very frustrating. Also, if you go to that site, please do something about the spelling and grammar. Please.

More ways to help the world while feeding your trivia addiction:

Free Kibble
Kind of like Free Rice except you only answer one question a day. Every time you answer a question, more dog kibble is donated to animal shelters. There's also its feline equivalent, Free KibbleKat.

Cartoon of the week:



And, of course, the cat video of the week:


Okay, I can't take the guilt. Here's productive, useful information:

I'm being a headache-addled wimp and shirking my duties as a dutiful blogger. Crabby will be sad. I can't be having that. So here. I put together a long list of useful and helpful blogs, where people talk about how to be more organized and productive and all that good stuff. (When I say "put together", I am of course referring to the fact that I personally went to that blog and copied the URL myself so that I could link to it here. That's pretty strenuous activity right now.)

Have a great almost-Friday!

Fanning the Flames at the Gym

[By Crabby]





As a grown-up, reasonably intelligent person, I do understand that everyone is different. When it comes to opinions and personal preferences, it's all subjective--there really is no real "right" or "wrong."

Is "big band jazz" a better kind of music than "death metal?" Is blue a prettier color than yellow? Is a big bowl of chocolate ice cream tastier than one containing ginger-lime sorbet?

It really isn't fair for me to say--though of course I have strong opinions on all three counts. You all may think differently and doesn't your opinion count just as much as mine?

So when I go to a theoretically air-conditioned gym on a hot day, and the cardio area is sweltering hot, and I realize that fan is set on low and so ask in a general way if anyone minds if I turn it up, and then a woman scowls and says:

"Oh god, please don't, I HATE the fan more than anything,"

despite the fact that everyone else is nodding, yes, please, please, please turn the fan up, we're dying here...

well, then isn't that woman an obnoxious, selfish, crazy-assed, crankpot entitled to her own opinion?

Well, no, she's not. Because her opinion is WRONG.

Areas in which cardio machines are placed should not be hot. They should be cool.

I was also baffled as to why someone who hated the idea of even a smidgen of cool air touching her skin would go to the gym wearing only a skimpy tank top and shorts. I would hereby like to recommend that people who go to air-conditioned gyms but prefer to work out in very warm temperatures BRING A SWEATSHIRT. Or a snowsuit. All of us who were sweating away had done all we could, clothing-wise. There was nothing more we could remove without risking arrest.

Of course I totally sympathize with the people who are trying to do yoga or other forms of stretching in a room set at meat-locker temperatures. It sucks that gyms aren't better at temperature regulation. (But at least it gives you yoga folks an excuse to purchase more of that hip yoga-wear that looks almost like something you could wear to a party, right?)

I have to confess that this is a constant complaint of mine--I often find the cardio areas of most workout facilities are too warm. And yet do I say to myself "gosh, Crabby, if you keep running into this, do you think you must run a little hotter than normal when you exercise?"

No! I say that the gyms and all the other people who are quite happy there are WRONG.

I'm such a grown up.

(Note: I tried to find some actual scientific research to say: "Gyms should be kept at cooler temperatures not just because Crabby likes it that way, but because it's actually better for you!" I could swear I read that unless you're specifically training for hot-weather exercise, that you're not getting "more" out of your workout by being hot and miserable. But alas, after spending a few minutes on google exhaustive research I couldn't find much one way or the other on optimal gym temperatures.

The best I could do was an article citing the guy who invented SuperSlow exercise, saying he discovered when doing his research that people performed best when it was about 61 degrees.

But then I read further in the same article about optimal workout conditions, and decided it might not be the most impressive reference source. Other "helpful" observations: "Nothing is more distracting than an attractive member of the opposite sex wrapped tightly in spandex, and nothing is more repulsive than an unattractive person in that sort of get-up." Thus, when choosing a Fitness Instructor: "Dress slacks and a long sleeve shirt are the minimum you should expect. Ideally, male instructors should wear a tie."

So, um, so much for the research.)

Does anyone have an opinion about optimal workout temperature or the subjective nature of human experience or the evils of scantily clad fitness instructors?

Hypnosis CD Winner

And the winner is...

MJ!

(Sorry, to all the not-MJ's. But do not despair! We've got another cool give-away coming up Fri.)

So MJ, please email Crabby McSlacker at gmail dot com and send us your mailing address by midnight EST July 17th and we'll tell the hypnosis folks to send you your CD.

Thanks fer playin' everyone, and better luck next time!