VMBURNS: Today, I'm thrilled to have Victoria Hamilton in the kitchen. Victoria is the author of the Vintage Kitchen Mystery series, and will be sharing news about the newest book in the series, MASHER OF CEREMONIES. Welcome, Victoria!
Victoria Hamilton: Hello,
readers! First, a big thank you to Valerie Burns for offering me one of her
usual days on Mystery Lovers Kitchen. I appreciate it so much; I always love
coming here to share a recipe. Before you get into that recipe, please don’t
miss my Giveaway at the end of my post. I’m giving away an Amazon Gift Card!
In
case you don’t know, Jaymie Leighton Mṻller, the heroine of my Vintage Kitchen
Mysteries presents, at the end of each mystery book, a vintage recipe she has re-imagined
in a more modern form. At the end of Masher of Ceremonies (Out May 19th
from Beyond the Page Publishing!) it happens to be a German-origin comfort
food, Schinkennudeln. If you want to know what that is… check out the book!
Here
at Mystery Lovers Kitchen I have for you a recipe for Stuffed Peppers done in
the slow cooker! These are easy, tasty, and warmly comforting, and yet don’t
heat your kitchen up on the hottest summer day. A win-win in my books.
But
first, may I blow your mind for just a sec? Did you know that bell peppers are
a FRUIT?? Yes, indeed they are. They are actually a BERRY. Say what??
I
didn’t know that until I did a little poking around to find out why bell
peppers are called bell peppers. Was there a Mrs. Bell? Did they look like a
bell to someone? And then I got totally distracted by the fact that they are
berries.
Anyhoo,
bell peppers, a plant of Central and South America, were called peppers simply
because that was the name given to most hot or spicy plants, and bell
peppers, first called so in the 17th century because, yes, someone
thought they looked like a bell.
Have
you ever had stuffed peppers? Though it is thought that people have stuffed
peppers since they first started cultivating them, the modern iteration of this
dish that we all grew up loving – or, if you were like most kids, loathing – was
in cookbooks as early as the 1890s.
A
word about the peppers; it’s customary to use green peppers in this dish. In
truth, green, red, orange and yellow peppers are all the same plant, but the red/orange/yellow
color comes when the pepper ripens. When they are green and underripe they have
a stronger flavor, with a bitterness that some think pairs well with the mild
flavor of rice and ground beef. However, if you are catering to fussy palates,
I would advise the more colorful peppers for the milder flavor profile.
For
my dish I came across some pretty ones in the grocery store called Aloha
peppers. They’re striped in reds and oranges and were irresistible.
Traditionally,
stuffed peppers is a baked dish, and you could bake these; they will
hold their shape better. But using the slow cooker renders them soft and easy
to eat, and the aim here is to make a food like peppers more appetising to
those fussy palates I just spoke of! These turn out delicious, oozy, cheesy and
delectably fork-tender.
SLOW COOKER STUFFED PEPPERS
(Makes
4 large, or 5-6 smaller.
Ingredients
4
large or 5-6 smaller bell peppers – see instructions to prep (Use whatever
colour you like!)
Pieces
of the peppers when cap is removed, diced fine
1
small onion, diced fine
2
fat cloves of garlic, diced fine
¾
lb lean ground beef
1
cup cooked rice (I used Basmati)
8
oz cream cheese
1
cup grated Monterey jack cheese
½
tsp smoked paprika
½
tsp onion powder
Salt
and pepper to taste
1
– Prepare peppers. Evenly cut off the cap of the pepper, discard the stem,
seeds and membrane, then dice the left-over pieces of pepper. *Note; a
serrated grapefruit spoon works great for taking the membrane out of the
pepper!
2
– Fry the hamburger gently, scoop out of pan and set aside. If there is too
much oil in the pan, discard it. Otherwise…
3
- Dice the onion and add it and the diced red pepper to the pan and sauté in
the oils from the hamburger until onion is translucent and pepper is softened.
Add the diced garlic for the last minute, and cook until soft.
4
– Add cooked beef, rice, cream cheese and grated cheese to pan and warm through
until the cheese is melted.
5
– Stuff mixture into prepared peppers, patting down to fill every cavity, and
place the peppers in a slow cooker, with a little water in the bottom. I like a
‘casserole’ style slow cooker, but whatever you have that the peppers will fit
into will work fine.
6
– Cook on low for 3 hours, or until the peppers are cooked, but still hold
their shape.
Serve!
These
were absolutely delicious. You could alter the ingredients if you like to make
a larger or smaller batch. Enjoy, my friends, while you read my Vintage
Kitchen Mystery #13, Masher of Ceremonies!
GIVEAWAY: Comment to enter to win
a $50 USD Amazon Gift Card. Draw is open to Canada and US readers and closes Midnight,
May 19th! Tell me your favorite comfort food, please, or if you
have ever made/eaten stuffed peppers!
A fundraiser for the local historical
society nearly goes bust when someone fills the coffers with blackmail and
murder . . .
The annual Tea With the Queen fundraiser
always makes for a festive weekend in Queensville, drawing visitors from far
and wide and giving local shops a welcome boost. This year, vintage kitchenware
collector Jaymie Müller is running the event, and she’s got her hands
full organizing old and new volunteers along with a surly catering crew. Then
her master of ceremonies tells her he’s being blackmailed but can’t go to the
police, and before Jaymie can sort that out she stumbles over a dead body at
the tea.
Despite the demands of keeping the
event up and running, Jaymie can’t help puzzling over the murder. There’s no
concrete evidence linking the cretin behind the blackmail scheme to the dead
body, so she begins questioning everyone connected to the blackmail, hoping to
expose the killer. And just as she discovers a web of relationships that leads
her to the culprit, she realizes that the Tea With the Queen may have been a
royal pain, but outwitting a blackmailer and catching a killer may be the death
of her . . .
Social Details:
Website: http://www.VictoriaHamiltonMysteries.com (Sign up for her
newsletter for all the latest!)
On
Substack (Sign up for newsletter there… always FREE!): Go to: https://substack.com/@victoriahamiltonmysteries and ‘Subscribe’ for the
FREE Victoria Hamilton Mysteries newsletter!
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaHamiltonMysteryAuthor
On
BlueSky:
@mysteryvictoria.bsky.social
On
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/mysteryauthorvictoriahamilton/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/598635.Victoria_Hamilton
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Victoria-Hamilton/e/B007T7LGAU
Victoria Hamilton is the pseudonym
of nationally bestselling romance author Donna Lea Simpson. Victoria is the
bestselling author of three mystery series, the Lady Anne Mysteries, the
Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, and the Merry Muffin Mysteries. She also wrote a
Regency-set historical mystery series, starting with A Gentlewoman’s
Guide to Murder. Visit her website at victoriahamiltonmysteries.com.
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