Stuffed Bell Pepper and Chocolate Cake

I've been pretty good lately as far as controlling my sweet tooth...but today I gave in. I was bad...but not TOO bad. That's the beauty of cooking for one; I made 2 small chocolate cakes that were delicious! To lead up to my dessert, I had stuffed bell peppers (that I happened to eat too quickly to take a picture...my bad).


Stuffed Bell Pepper

1 green bell pepper
2 tablespoons diced onions
1 teaspoon cooking oil
garlic salt
1/3 to 1/2 lb ground beef
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup cooked rice (I just used minute rice...I'm not fancy!)

preheat oven to 350
1. Cut the stem of the bell pepper off and discard. Also cut about a half inch of the top of the bell pepper off but save this part. Remove the seeds and the white membrane stuff on the inside of the bell pepper (do both parts of the bell pepper).
2. In a small frying pan heat your oil. While the oil is heating, dice the little bit of bell pepper we saved from step one and add the bell pepper and the onion to your hot oil. As they start to cook, add your hamburger and garlic salt and cook together. You should cook it the hamburger has browned.
3. Add tomato sauce and cooked rice to hamburger mixture and remove from heat. Mix everything together really well...taste it and add salt and pepper as you need.
4.In a small oven-safe dish (I still vote pyrex here!), add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan about 1/8 of an inch. We don't want the pepper to stick to the pan.
5. Fill the bell pepper with our hamburger mixture and set the filled pepper in the pan. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the pepper is nice and tender and the mixture has heated all the way through (which should already have been hot-ish since we put it in when it was warm).
6. Let it sit for a few minutes before you eat it so you don't burn your face off and so the flavors mix all together.

The bell pepper was so good! My momma used to make them when I was little and I don't know if I would admit it then, but now, I love them!


CAKE!!! CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!

Ok I cheated, I didn't just magically figure out how to make a perfect chocolate cake. I borrowed the recipe from the website : http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateCupcakes.html and used a conversion thingie to figure out the right amount of everything I would need to make about 1/4 the recipe.

Here's the deal!

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
3 table spoons eggs....see the instructions for this one...
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Put your cocoa powder in a small bowl and add boiling water to it. Mix completely to make a little chocolaty sauce. Set aside to let it cool.
2. Mix your remaining dry ingredients together and set aside.
3. In yet another bowl...i know! So many dishes to clean later!....mix together your butter and sugar until its nice and creamy. Then add the vanilla.
4. Now add your egg. Here's the thing...eggs don't come in quarters. I beat together one egg and then divided it. One egg was about 1/4 cup of fluid...so I divided that in half and it turned out the be about about 3 table spoons or 1/8 of a cup. ANYWAYS, add the egg to your sugar and mix it all up.
5. Now, take your dry ingredients and add them to the sugary goodness. Mix them together and add your chocolate sauce to the mixture. Mix well.
6. Now, you can make cupcakes or you can be cool like me and use small ramicans. I divided the cake batter into two ramicans and filled them about 2/3 of the way up....and then I licked the bowl. >:-)
7. Bake for about 15 minutes or until they have risen and are a little springy to the touch on top. When you stick a toothpick in, it should come out clean.

Let the cakes cool and while they're cooling, whip up a little bit of chocolate butter cream frosting.

I think this is what I did...I did it kind of to taste.

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 table spoons-ish of cocoa powder (i did it to taste....)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 table spoons room temp or slightly softened butter

Mix everything together. Really. Add about half of the butter first, then add more as you need until you get the consistency you want. I think I used all 4 tablespoons.
Top your cakes with the frosting when they're cool and you're set!

The chocolate cakes were delicious! And now you don't have to worry about 18 of his friends sitting on the counter staring at you for a week....

Happy Cooking!

Amy