You won’t forget these novel Bell-pepper chips with delicious stuffing

Our green Bell peppers have really been showing off among the garden rows. Our garden looks as though a second spring has arrived. Pitiful-looking green-pepper plants that barely held their heads up through the summer drought now are bushy and thriving. Yesterday Hubby brought in a bushel basket of them. I had just the recipe I had been saving for this moment.

Pepper and Chicken Nachos were just the most adorable things—pictured in the July 2011 Southern Living issue that told us how to put our farmers’ market finds to good use. In July, because of the drought, we had no green peppers in sight, but what’s happening now makes up for that shortage.

The green-pepper wedges (I tucked in a few red ones for variety as well) were soaked in a flavorful marinade, chilled for 15 minutes, and then grilled until they were tender. A chicken-pea stuffing (the meat shredded from a Kroger deli chicken) went atop them, with cheese and cilantro on top of that.

Hubby just devoured these; although originally meant for appetizers, he made an entire meal out of them. He found the stuffing of the novel nacho “chips” to be highly filling and nutritious atop the healthy pepper.

Green peppers, we missed you months ago but are happy to have your hopeful yield during this fall season.

Pepper and Chicken Nachos

4 garlic cloves, pressed

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

4 medium-sized Bell peppers, cut into 2-inch pieces

2 cups chopped deli-roasted chicken

1 (15 1/2-ounce) can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed

1 (7.5-ounce) package sliced sharp Cheddar cheese

1/3 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves

Preheat grill to 350 to 400 degrees (medium-high) heat. Combine garlic and next 5 ingredients. Reserve 3 tablespoons garlic mixture. Pour remaining garlic mixture into a large, shallow dish; add peppers; turn to coat. Cover and chill for 15 minutes, turning once. Remove peppers from marinade. Reserve marinade for basting. Grill peppers, covered with grill lid, for 8 to 10 minutes or until peppers blister and are tender. Turn occasionally and baste with marinade. Preheat broiler with oven rack 4 inches from heat. Combine chicken and peas with reserved 3 tablespoons garlic mixture. Place peppers in a single layer on a lightly greased rack in an aluminum-foil-lined broiler pan. Quarter cheese slices. Top each pepper with chicken mixture and one cheese quarter. Broil 4 to 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven, sprinkle with cilantro, and serve immediately Makes 4 servings.

Jettison the strawberries and still have a wonderful apple salsa dish with cinnamon chips

If my hubby gets within the same room as a strawberry, we pay for it for days on end.

At some point in his adult life he developed a terrible reaction to strawberry seeds--not raspberry or even tomato seeds, mind you--but strawberry seeds. They give him violent, doubled-over stomach cramps, as the berry seeds wedge their way into various nooks and crannies (doctors call these diverticulii) of the digestive tract. Pain and misery ensue for the next 48 hours and beyond.

No, no, no, he says to any thought of strawberries anywhere near his food. (Our granddaughter likes to tease him by calling him "Mr. Strawberry Man" and bringing around plastic strawberries from her play food to "tempt" him.) That means delicacies of the summer such as strawberry shortcake and strawberry homemade ice cream are off-limits. If I'm at a party at which strawberries appear on a fruit tray, I'll quietly take one onto my plate and sneak off into some corner to get my strawberry fix, but rarely do I bring them home from the grocery. Can't run the risk that a stray seed might crosspollinate in the fridge.

So when I was lured by the recipe for Apple Salsa with Cinnamon Chips to use some of those gorgeous fall apples in my refrigerator, I had to stop short when I saw that a cup of chopped strawberries was among the ingredients. Bummer, I thought, that sounded good. Then I reneged and decided to make two versions--a non-strawberry one for Hubby and the recommended version for me (and for the photo to go with this blog). This worked well, although I stored each version in absolutely airtight, separate containers so a random seed wouldn't migrate over to the non-strawberry bowl.

This is a simple, wonderful dish (source: Chickasaw Nation Nutrition Services) that is enhanced by the inventive cinnamon chips, made from your average wheat tortilla. When we ate up all the chips in using it for an appetizer/snack, the leftover salsa transitioned to a fruity side dish with an entree. We also envisioned it as a topping for ice cream. Mr. Strawberry Man was happy and I was beyond so, since I wasn't left to wonder the outcome of this intriguing recipe.

Apple Salsa with Cinnamon Chips

Salsa:

2 medium tart apples, chopped

1 cup chopped strawberries

2 medium kiwifruit, peeled and chopped

1 small orange

2 tablespoons brown sugar (I subbed with 1 tablespoon brown-sugar substitute)

2 tablespoons sugar-free apple jelly, melted

Chips:

8 whole wheat tortillas

1 tablespoon water

1/4 cup sugar (I used sugar substitute)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

In a bowl combine apples, strawberries, and kiwi. Grate zest from entire orange. Squeeze juice from orange. Add zest and juice to apple mixture (don't add orange itself). Stir in brown sugar and jelly. For the chips, cut each tortilla into 8 wedges. Use a pastry brush to brush tortilla wedges lightly with water. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over tortillas. Place in a single layer on ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and serve with salsa. Makes 8 servings.

"Essence of summer" food must-have list just got a new addition

Some foods literally exude summer. Everyone has his or her faves, but my "essence of summer" foods are lemon ice-box pie, strawberry shortcake, marinated cucumber salad, and calico beef burgers, to name a few.

They're the menu items that I just can't "do" the summer season without. So early on, I start making a mental list to be sure I'm not having to cram in some last-minute gorging as the season wanes.

A new quintessential summer dish moved onto my radar screen this week. I wasn't looking for a summer synonym--but simply something to use the ample ears of corn my hubby brought home from Kroger this week because the produce area had it at a good sale price. (The corn in our garden is materializing but isn't quite as high as an elephant's eye yet, so we're still supplementing from the grocery until we bring in our own corn ears.)

So I stumbled on a recipe for "Avocado Salsa". I thought the mingling of avocados, cherry tomatoes, and fresh corn sounded, well, colorful at least. Like several other recipes I've mentioned in this blog, this one inspired skepticism also. "It just seems like it would need some kind of a dressing," I reported to Hubby as I assembled the ingredients.

Interesting role-reversal. He's usually the one who raises a dubious eyebrow about whether a recipe will "work". This time he was the Encouraging Barnabas of the kitchen. "I bet the lime juice is all it needs," he assessed as he scanned the salsa recipe in the "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" booklet from the Chickasaw Nation.

He was right. The lime juice, mixed with the salt and chopped cilantro, worked miracles on the avocado, tomato, and corn combination (and even more so the second day after the concoction refrigerated overnight.)

The result! "Avocado Salsa", which we served over spinach but also could be an appetizer alongside tortilla chips--became instant, edible summer--a new dish perfect for summer staple events such as picnics, family reunions, church potlucks, lunches at the lake, or as we experienced it--a simple summer dinner-for-two at home.

Avocado Salsa

2 avocados, peeled, seeded, and chopped

2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes, quartered

1 cup corn, cooked and cut off cob

3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon salt (we use salt substitute)

Combine avocado, tomatoes, corn, and cilantro; toss. Slowly pour lime juice over the salsa and toss to combine. Chill for 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend.