The blog is to record real life stories from our life to be included in the book. A classic from last year. The funny thing is I have loads of bell peppers and was thinking it was time for the Stuffed Pepper Casserole again.
Kathy Duty Harris
I am never sure why but I do think we have more calamities at this house than normal. And why do we laugh? Are we just always so exhausted we are giddy? We have had a bad couple of weeks so maybe we were just due some fun. Let me share! I have a recipe for Stuffed Pepper Casserole that we both like but I seldom make. There may be a reason for that as well. Every year when my bell peppers do well in the garden, Gene asks for it and never gets it. So this year with an abundance of bell peppers, I decided I would make it. I tried all week but it never worked out so it was in the plans for dinner last night. I had warned Gene it is a two person job and he would be asked to assist. He always does and is great help in the kitchen until yesterday. I had gone downstairs for ground beef and was defrosting while he was catching up with football games. I was cooking the peppers and chopping the tops of the peppers and needed to chop onions and celery. I didn’t have an onion upstairs and Gene said he would go to basement and get one and I told him I needed a can of tomatoes as well. By the time he got back, I opened the ground beef and I had defrosted 4 patties. So I put them in a zip lock bag and in the fridge and said well we will have hamburgers tomorrow night. I had told him I needed 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice. Gene cooks the rice at this house. Always perfect, he cooks it in the Pampered Chef rice cooker in the microwave He keeps his directions on his tablet so he found those and put rice in the mw and he had found more ground beef in the upstairs freezer but we needed to wait on rice to finish before I could defrost the meat. We even discussed maybe we do need two microwaves. I turned and I had a bag of onions in the sink. When he went to get the onion he found a bag of rotting potatoes in the bin with the onions so he brought up the potatoes to take to the compost pile and the bag of onions for me to wash off. By then I have remembered I have most of an onion in the fridge so I just chopped it and had him wash and drain the onions. I turned around and he was staring into the cupboard and he asked me what kind of tomatoes he was looking for. I said home canned tomatoes from the root cellar when you went to get the onion. He informed me those are jars of tomatoes not cans of tomatoes. Cans are in the cabinet, jars are in the root cellar. So I said well while you are in the cabinet, I need 8 ounces of tomato sauce and I am pretty sure we only have 15 oz cans so just measure out 8 ounces and put the rest in the fridge and I will find a recipe to use 8 ounces of tomato sauce to go with hamburgers tomorrow night. He went to the basement to get the tomatoes and came back to his rice being ready. He took the rice out and he burnt it completely up and the rice cooker as well. This will be the third piece of Pampered Chef I have replaced in 3 weeks,. He has no idea but it was a disaster. And it is the only way he knows how to cook rice and directions for stove top will take too long. So we decided to use the instant pot. I mean after all it has a specific button for rice. So we had to find the instant pot book and start rice in the instant pot. Now remember, I never do one thing at a time. Gene does one thing at a time and does it to perfection, most days. I do 10 things, all medium. So this entire time I am also cleaning so the cleaning ladies can come today. Isaiah says there should be a new title for them since it takes this much cleaning to get ready for them to clean. lol And I was doing a load of laundry and repotting a plant to deliver today. I came back to the kitchen and Gene has a pot of browned beef in his hand. Why did you cook the ground beef? Because you told me too. I did not. I didn’t need browned ground beef. Well the recipe says to brown it and drain it. It does not, I read it carefully to make sure I wasn’t supposed to brown the ground beef. So he took me over to the cookbook lying on the counter to show me he read it correctly. Problem was he read the recipe on the adjoining page, not the one highlighted in yellow, dated with first time I tried it, so I know which one I have made before. So back to the basement for more ground beef to defrost. At this point we just stood in the kitchen and laughed. So now I have hamburger patties in the fridge, a half a can of tomato sauce, and a bowl of browned ground beef. We did get the peppers stuffed and in the oven and they were really good as always but I am not sure we have it in us to make them again. And this morning is not going much better. Gene goes to chicken yard with me to help with the ducks. They have a rotational grazing system of my creation and they have to get in a row and be moved and it is a two person job. He had the nerve to ask me in the chicken yard if I realized I had my shirt on backwards and I said no but I knew the neck was not comfortable. And then he said and your pants are on wrong side out too. I haven’t even changed them. I am still cleaning for the cleaning ladies. If anyone else wants to try the recipe I will share it and maybe I should just go ahead and have a pampered chef party if this is going to continue. At least if the rice cooker has been discontinued we have learned to use the instant pot.
Left the Holler but Not Too Far 
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