Stuffed Bell Peppers

I found this great recipe in my cookbook, "Vintage Vicksburg."  I got this cookbook as a wedding gift and have already found a few great gems!  I love cookbooks like this - tried and true recipes by ladies who feed these meals to their families.  And sometimes I recognize the names!  

I actually doubled this recipe and froze the rest, so you'll see a lot more peppers than the recipe calls for.  You know how I love freezing meals!  Makes it so much easier to have healthy meals during busy season.

Cut off the tops of 5-6 bell peppers, remove the reads, and parboil in salted, boiling water for 4 minutes.  Drain and cool.

Brown 1 pound ground beef in a skillet with one small onion, finely chopped.  Drain oil.  Mash 1 (20 ounce) can of whole tomatoes and add to the beef.  

Then add 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.  Then add 1 to 1 1/2 cup of cooked rice.  Simmer, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes.  Remove from head and add 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, stirring until melted and well blended.  

Stuff mixture into peppers.  Top with grated parmesan cheese.  Bake at 350 about 20 minutes or until hot.  If freezing the peppers, do not bake.  Wrap individually and place in a large freezer bag.  Thaw well before serving.  

And enjoy!

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Source: Vintage Vicksburg

Ingredients:

5-6 large bell peppers

1 pound ground beef

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 (20-oz) can whole tomatoes

2 T Worcestershire sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

1 to 1 1/2 cups cooked rice

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Grated parmesan cheese

Cut tops off bell peppers and remove seeds.  Parboil in salted, boiling water for 4 minutes.  Drain and cool.  Brown meat in skillet with onion.  Drain oil.  Add tomatoes that have been mashed.  Add Worcestershire, salt, and pepper.  Simmer 15-20 minutes.  Add rice.  Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add cheddar cheese, stirring until melted and well blended.  Stuff mixture into peppers.  Top with Parmesan cheese.  Bake at 350 about 20 minutes or until hot.  If freezing peppers, do not bake.  Wrap individually and place in large freezer bag.  Thaw well before baking.

The Saturday after our Christmas dinner with the family, Henderson's dad headed back to Alabama.  We stopped at Mia's (delish Mexican) on the way to the airport so everyone could taste some Tex-Mex.  We also drove by Dealey Plaza so they could see the spot where JFK was killed.

After dropping Lawrence off, we let Henderson have some fun at Cabela's and then we all headed to the Outlet mall!  We got some great deals and had fun shopping (well, maybe not all of us.  I won't say any names, but it was Henderson :).

Sunday was a great day for me because the ladies got up in a taking down the Christmas decorations, cleaning up, and decorating our mantle mood!  It was so nice to have help with this as I was planning to do it all by myself when Henderson went back to work.  Nothing's more depressing than taking down Christmas by yourself!  Ellen and Susan worked on decorating our mantle in a non-holiday way and it turned out great!  So thankful for them!

I made the comment that Henderson and I still didn't have a "We're homeowners" picture in front of our house, so after we all cleaned up, we did a little photo shoot!

Henderson got me a cookbook for biscuits for Christmas, so that night Susan gave us a lesson on making biscuits!  Then she fried some chicken, and let me tell y'all, that stuff was good.  You should've seen my plate.  Neither Henderson nor I are good at frying chicken and even if we tried it would be an ordeal.  Nice to have a professional do all the work!

We loved this house's Christmas decorations!  Their neighbor had actually won an award from the city for their lights, so these people just put up a sign saying, "Ditto"!  Creativity at its finest!

New Year's Eve, Henderson had to work, so Ellen, Susan and I toured Waxahachie looking at all the cute antique shops and the courthouse.  In case you don't know, Waxahachie is another town in our county where we attend church, do our grocery shopping, and hang out on odd Saturdays.  It's the cutest little town and I love taking family members there!

That night, we dressed up and headed to Tuscan Slice for dinner, our fave Italian place in Waxahachie.  

Henderson and I look a little strange in this picture, but it was a delicious meal!

Then we headed back to Ennis to check out the Wooden Nickel, a local bar.  We had a few drinks and decided to ring in the new year at home!

Luckily I had bought some champagne thinking this might happen!  :)

The next morning, we all woke up bright and early to head to the airport.  We were sad to see them go, but had such a fun time while the family visited!  Can't wait for them to come again!

Christmas dinner with the Kings

Henderson's parents and sister came to Texas the Thursday after Christmas since we couldn't go to Alabama for the holiday.  Friday, they and I slept a little late while Henderson headed to work for a half day.  We went to the clinic and showed it to them and then headed to Collin Street Bakery for lunch.  We decided to do our Christmas that night so Henderson would have time to fry the turkey and so we could open all of our Christmas presents!

Henderson's family really blessed us this year with lots of great gifts for our new home, including the fireplace screen and accessories you've seen in our mantle pictures.  I also got an ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid - I'll tell you all about that a little later!

We had a great meal with a beautiful and delicious turkey, some sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole.  It was a fun night to be able to use all of our fancier dishes and be able to entertain in our home.  We loved having them here!  

Here's a few pictures from the fun night!

Christmas Day

Our first Christmas day in Texas was absolutely perfect!  It was just the two of us, but we managed to have a blast as always.

 

We woke up to find Santa had enjoyed the cookies and milk!

Santa was really good to me this year!

and our fur babies!

after opening our gifts, I pulled this delish Blueberry French toast courtesy of Pinterest.  I will def be making this again!!

We then went to the church for their annual Christmas day luncheon.  It was so nice to have a reason to get out of our pjs and see other people!  And so rewarding to realize that the church fed over 800 needy and homebound individuals on Christmas day.  I hope to make this an annual tradition!

I loved setting the table for just the two of us!  It consisted of our Christmas China - Lenox Holiday, my grandmother's silver, AnnieGlass, our Christmas glasses Susan gave me, and so on and so forth!

Ready to eat!  I'm wearing one of Mimi's aprons.  I love it because it has a dish towel on it!

Here it is with all our food!  We had ribeyes, boiled shrimp, and lots of sides that we ignored!  We loved having a non-traditional Christmas dinner!

Dixon and me enjoying our first Christmas in Texas!

Christmas Day was just what we needed.  We got to do what we wanted to do, while still serving others and celebrating the birth of our Savior.  I cannot wait to continue the traditions we started this year!

Christmas Festivities

Sorry I'm just now posting about Christmas, but as you know this is my busiest time of the year!  This post is all about what we did in the weeks/days leading up to Christmas day.

We lounged around by the Christmas tree...

 sent out Christmas cards with our precious furbabies...

decorated our new mantle...

I went to Eupora and met the newest member of our family...

and visited with family at our annual Compound Dollar General Party...

the next night, Dixon and I got ready for the fam's annual Progressive Dinner, starting at my mama's house...

enjoyed spending time with my two favorite ladies...

I went to lunch with Mimi at Julep on my way back to Texas (sadly, I did not get a picture)...

on Christmas Eve, Henderson and I made cookies for Santa with my new cookie cutters from Uncle Douglas...

we then, made our favorite Paula Deen Buttery Cajun Shrimp to celebrate Christmas Eve...

And headed to the church for the midnight Christmas Eve service (unsurprisingly, it was very hard for me to stay awake)...

and put out cookies and milk for Santa Clause!

Up next, our fun-filled Christmas day!

Hello 2013!

Wow. What. A. Year.

2012 was the year of changes for us. We were showered with family and friends' time and love during our engagement. My grandfather died. Henderson graduated and moved to Texas to start practicing veterinary medicine. We got married!!!! The honeymoon was amazing. I moved to Texas. I started working for my company in Dallas. We bought a house.

Whew. Exhausts me just thinking about all of it! 2012 was so exciting, for all of the reasons listed above. But as strange as this seems, I'm even more excited about 2013. I'm excited about settling into our home and our new town. Meeting new people. Routine. Nothing new.

But of course what would a new year be without me making a few goals. So, without further ado:

1. Positivity. Embracing it. I actually have been working on this a lot lately and feel like I've gotten a pretty good start on this one. No more whining/complaining because, quite frankly, my life is awesome. Enough said.
2. Creating more. Whether its cooking, sewing, or upping my game with my DSLR, I want to be putting stuff put there instead of constantly using up resources.
3. Unplugging. I might be addicted to social media. This addiction is definitely a by product of moving to Texas. I like to keep up with all of my friends and family on the book. But we all know too much of anything is a bad thing.
4. Hydrating. Enough said. And coca-cola doesn't count.
5. Activity. Not just exercising. Doing stuff instead of hanging out on the couch. Again, something I've already made great strides with, I just want to keep the momentum going.
6. Quiet time. And not from the daily devotion emails I get everyday. I really want to dive into God's word and listen to what he has to say.

I think that's enough. Maybe I'll succeed in one of these areas!