Hello, everyone!

This week was very special to me. I involved myself in organizing an activity for a party at work. I was so overwhelmed and busy that unfortunately didn’t manage to write a blog according to schedule. What was the activity that took so much time? I am proud to share with you this idea, and maybe some of you will do it as well. On one of the Instagram marathons, I have learned a bit about the art of painting gingerbread cookies. While I watched a master class, I got an idea that it can be great as an activity for the party.

At the same time at work, we were planning a party for colleagues (I work in a university), and typically, some quiz is a common activity for parties in Norway. This time, I proposed to do something differently, and it was agreed – I am in charge. So in one day, I baked over 250 gingerbread cookies of 12 different shapes (ca. 3 kg) and made the colorful glaze in 6 different colors to paint those cookies. We had 5 teams, a theme and the same kit for creativity – it was the enjoyable time of making art from cookies and sweet glaze.

But today, I prepared for you something special – my recipe of stuffed bell pepper in Ukrainian style. I am sure you will love it.

You will need these ingredients:

1. Already cooked rice – 300 g
2. Ground meat (or mushrooms for vegetarian) – 400 g
3. Bell pepper – 5 pcs (average size)
4. Carrot – at least 200 g
5. Onion – 2 pcs (average or big size)
6. Chopped tomatoes – 1 pack = 400 g  (or 100 g of tomato paste)
7. Sour cream – 200 g (I use 18 %)
8. Boiled water – ½ l
9. Dry basil – 1 tbsp
10. Dry rosemary – 1 tsp
11. Slat and black pepper – after your taste

Step 1. Prepare stuffing

We will start with mixing of 300 g of beforehand cooked rice (follow instruction on the pack for rice) and 400 g of ground meat or mushrooms. For a richer flavor, let’s make a sauce for our stuffing. Take one onion and cut it into small squares like pictured, and then grate ½ of carrots. Warm up a pan, add a bit of vegetable oil and start frying the cut onion (at heating temperature 6 out of 9). After it became soft, add carrots and keep cooking the mixture. Add salt and black pepper so much that it is supposed to be over salted. In the end, add 2 tablespoons of chopped tomatoes or 30 g of tomato paste. Our source is ready, and we can mix it in rice with meat. After you mixed sauce and rice, please add salt and pepper after your taste.

Our stuffing is ready, and we can put it aside for now.

Step 2. Making sauce for stewing

This sauce is very similar to the one that we made for stuffing. Therefore, cut rest of the onion, grate carrots on two different sized graters. Fry cut onion and carrot in the same way as in step 1, and then add rest of chopped tomatoes. Mix it well, add one tablespoon of basil and one teaspoon of rosemary. After you fried a mixture for about a minute, please add sour cream and stir it well. It will become a bit thick. Therefore we will add a ½ liter of boiled water. Fry it for a minute, add salt and black pepper after your taste (if the sauce it too sour – add 1 teaspoon of sugar or 1 tablespoon of sour cream). At this step trust your taste, and make it delicious for yourself because this sauce will enrich the dish with flavors that it has.

Step 3. Fill the bell pepper

Before we can start filling the bell pepper, we need to clean it first in the way that we will get a kind of “cup” from it – like on the picture. At this stage be careful and don’t make a hole throughout pepper. Then take a tablespoon, and fill cleaned bell peppers with stuffing. Put them in the deep casserole and cover with the sauce we made earlier. Set a casserole on the stove and cover it with a lid. Let bell peppers stew for 1h and 30 minutes.

Step 4. Serve the food

Take one bell pepper on the plate, cut it in half and cover with the sauce from the casserole. Bon appetit!

Enjoy your food!