Stuffed Peppers and Gingerbread Soufflé

Hi!

I have been doing some more cooking recently and I have made stuffed peppers and gingerbread soufflés. I am going to write about my experience making them and where the recipes came from.

My Stuffed Peppers

When you are being served stuffed peppers, you do not completely know what to expect because there is a huge range of ingredients to stuff the peppers with. This is why I liked the sound of them because there is an element of surprise. So I decided that I would cook stuffed peppers. I browsed through many recipes on various websites and familiarised myself with the recipes and in the end I combined ideas from a few different recipes to make them. Practically all of the recipes stated that before being stuffed, the peppers have to have a chance to soften up. I used red, orange and yellow peppers so that they would look colourful. I decided that I would serve stuffed pepper halves because that meant that you could have 2 different ones to eat. So after scooping all the seeds out, I placed my pepper halves into the oven to soften up while I cooked the filling. In all the recipes I looked at, there were different fillings. Some used couscous while others used rice and the additional ingredients varied from Palma ham to cabbage! I decided to use rice and I mixed it with olives, pancetta, feta cheese, basil, onion, garlic and some pesto. After that, it was really quite easy! I stuffed the peppers and cooked them again for about 10-15 minutes. They tasted delicious. So if anyone's looking for an easy meal to make, I would definitely recommend stuffed peppers because not only are they very tasty, but they also can be stuffed with pretty much anything you have lurking about in your fridge!

My Soufflé

A soufflé has always sounded like quite a hard thing to cook for me! I have memories of watching numerous people stressing over cooking them on masterchef over the years. I decided it is about time I had a go and learned what all the fuss was about. Soufflés can seem hard and quite technical to make but with a few pieces of advice, you will be absolutely fine! The first part is very simple: choosing the flavour! I went for a mixture of ginger, chocolate and cinnamon-  a flavour combination I can seriously recommend after sampling my soufflés! However, other flavours would be just as nice I am sure! Making the soufflé mixture is all about getting as much air in as possible so expect whisking and folding. A characteristic of a soufflé is that it rises in the oven and you need lots of air in the mixture to achieve that rise. The cooking part is all about timing. I think that it is nice if the soufflés are a bit gooey in the middle. To achieve this, you have to be exact on the timings. Too little will make the soufflé undercooked and not cakey enough whereas too much time will lose that gooey centre and make it dry. You need to be on top of the time if you are going to make soufflés. When serving soufflés, make sure they are eaten straight away otherwise they will sink and the lovely rise will no longer be there. Gingerbread soufflés go well with cream or a nice vanilla custard.

I would love to know if anyone has tried making these dishes so please leave comments below about your attempts!

Bye!