A Little of This, a Little of That

We couldn't figure out what to make for dinner recently. So, like what many of you might do, we looked for inspiration by opening and closing the refrigerator a half dozen times and looking through the kitchen cabinets, pulling out this and that, looking it over, ending up throwing a few things out, argued a little, just a little... 

The result was our home version of the Food Network show "Chopped". OK, this is what was in our "basket" - 

A pack of frozen ground pork

Some frozen peppadew peppers (they are sweet, sour and spicy hot)

A chunk of stale country bread (no mold)

The remnants (about 1/4 of a bag) of shredded mozzarella

Spinach and arugula mix (oh, we still have some of that left?)

A box of multicolored farfalle pasta that was a gift from my son and daughter-in-law

This is what we ended up making with those ingredients. It really turned out great with a lot of good flavors and textures - the sweet/sour/heat and char from the peppers, the creamy, bitter and color from the pasta and greens and the savory crunch from the meatballs. Nice!

Lisa stuffed the peppadew peppers with browned pork, breadcrumbs made from the stale bread, the mozzarella, olive oil, garlic and oregano from our garden.

Made meatballs with the extra stuffing 

Made the farfalle pasta and stirred in a couple hand-fulls of the arugula and spinach salad mix with some ricotta and pecorino cheese. The hot pasta wilted the greens just right.

Broiled the stuffed peppadews to put a little crunch and char on them. Addictive!