Culinary Cavewoman: Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers with Mexican Cauliflower Rice

Welcome back to all my foodie friends!

We are trying out a recipe from Pinterest today... and it was both a win! and a fail! Pinterest is where the majority of my recipes come from, but I am really trying to compile a recipe book of favorite recipes because I tend to get lost in Pinterest and will be scrolling forever without making a decision. 

This first recipe is definitely going in the recipe book, and I have to give all the credit to the Wicked Spatula for providing this yummy twist on stuffed peppers!

Buffalo Chicken Stuffed Peppers

So we started out by sauteing some onions, and man did I need some of those silly onion goggles. Onion fumes are the absolute worst for me - I looked like a raccoon after sauteing these up. Mascara all the way down to my chin!  But at least this part was easy, and I am all about the easy recipes.

I'm skipping a few steps here and adding in some cooked and shredded chicken to the pan, along with the ghee and buffalo sauce and ranch dressing (powder). I use Frank's Red Hot Sauce (I put that shit on everything!), and the ghee I use comes from Purity Farm. I buy it on Amazon  as it's hard to find in stores here unless I can make it to Trader Joe's. Everything still going pretty easy peasy with this recipe. I should point out that I cheat and go paleo-ish on the ranch dressing... I'm too lazy (and too messy) to make my own, so I just grabbed one of those Hidden Valley ranch dressing packs.

Now the fun part! Stuff those peppers up and throw on some mozzarella cheese. They were loking so pretty here! I tend to stick with red peppers for almost everything. Green peppers are somewhat bitter to me, so I try to stick with red ones. I also look for female peppers instead of males. Did you know there were male and female peppers?  Female peppers are sweeter and you can tell them apart because they have four bumps on the bottom, and the male peppers only have three. If you were getting the peppers for a salad instead of cooking, you definitely want the female ones.

And TA-DA! I cooked them too dang long! I didn't burn the peppers or anything but I did overbrown the cheese up there. It was all the fault of the next recipe that distracted me, dang it!  But overall these peppers were super yummy. The ranch and buffalo sauce were an awesome combination that set off the pepper nicely. The only negative thing about these is that they are hard to eat and make a pretty big mess, they are also too much food for me by half. Next time I make these, I am going to cut the peppers in half and stuff them that way. It will be a much more manageable amount of food for me.

Mexican Cauliflower Rice

 

Okay y'all. I love Trader Joe's, especially when they sell convenient little things like this - riced cauliflower. It's so much more convenient than making a big mess in my food processor. But there is just one problem - I don't really LIKE cauliflower. I am trying to like it, I really am. I think I have tried at least 5 recipes now and they just never work out for me. I can't manage to kill the cauliflower taste. But I thought if anything would mask the unappealing flavor, it would be MEXICAN cauliflower rice.  This recipe came from Paleo Grubs - a good source for Paleo followers. 

Again, first we had to saute up some onions and other ingredients. My poor eyes were just aching at this point.

Here I had a bit of a problem. The recipe called for 4 cups of cauliflower florets. But it didn't say whether the measurement was before or after the cauliflower had been riced. I had a dilemma and I am admittedly not great at deciphering recipes. In the end I just dumped in the whole 12oz bag of cauliflower. (I think that might have been too much. LOL)

Here we have added in the tomatoes, spices and chicken stock. I am thinking that this looks nothing like Mexican rice, and it is not going to fool me out of thinking that its cauliflower. It looks kinda bland doesn't it? 

So I followed the directions and cooked it all down and it was bland city. I don't know if it was because I had too much cauliflower and not enough spice... or if that's just how the recipe was supposed to be. So I cheated again... and I added in a tablespoon of taco seasoning (or three). Unfortunately it didn't do anything to help the taste - it was still bland and totally unlike Mexican rice.

So this is it all plated up - my paleo Mexi-Meal. I was good and made myself eat the fake rice, even though I didn't like it. (I'm trying to rid myself of the picky eater label). But the stuffed pepper was really good and I will definitely make it again.

I still haven't gotten any better at these pictures - I'm just not very artistic with the camera. I will try to do better for the next feature - which will be one of my go-to paleo breakfasts!

Ciao cavegirls!