My friend Olivia recently started a blog Ohlivin! about her life in NYC and many of them contain a good amount about food.  I was rather inspired by this entry particularly the pasta dish. The though of a pistachio-lemon sauce to the pasta just sounded amazing.  I used Father’s Day as the perfect opportunity to try and create this dish since I am not in NYC and can’t order this.  I also found some big green bell peppers from our garden and decided to try my hand at making stuffed peppers. No meal would be complete without an adult beverage of sorts.  Both my parents are fans of wine however, I am not. The only wine based drink I like is sangria.  I noticed that we had an abundance of fruit in our kitchen as well so it was only natural I made some with white wine.

Farfalle in Lemon-Pistachio Sauce w/Peas

- 1 package farfalle pasta
- 1/2 cup finely ground pistachio (take unsalted pistachios and use a blender or food processor to grind down. I used a coffee grinder)
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add farfalle and cook for 8-10 minutes or until al dente. Heat a sauce pan on medium heat. Add olive oil and ground pistachios. Make sure all the pistachios are covered in oil. The pistachios in the oil should create a paste. Allow that too cook for 1-2 minutes once paste is formed. Add cream, peas, lemon zest and parmesan cheese. Cook for another 2 minutes or so and salt and pepper then remove from heat.

Once pasta is done cooking strain it and immediately add fresh lemon juice. Quickly toss then add to sauce and serve.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Now I had never made stuffed peppers before nor had I ever even eaten one.  Instead of looking up ways to make stuffed pepper I just went ahead and winged it. It still turned out pretty delicious it just got a teensy bit messy so just a forewarning if you want to try this out.

- 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped white mushrooms
- 1/4 cup white onion chopped
- 1 small garlic clove minced
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella/cheddar cheese (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take each pepper and cut the top off. Take out center and seeds of each pepper and rinse. In a bowl combine cream cheese, mushrooms, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Fold all the ingredients together (don’t worry about the onion and garlic being raw, they will cook in the oven). Scoop cream cheese mixture into each pepper until nearly to the top. Don’t fill it all the way to the top because you don’t want it to flow out of the pepper once it melts. Top each pepper generously with shredded cheese.

Place each pepper in a casserole dish. Place in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until cheese on top is a nice and crusty.

White Sangria

The great thing about sangria is that it’s extremely easy and you can virtually put in any kind of fruit you want in it.  It’s better though to prepare a couple hours in advance of your meal just to allow all the fruit to settle into the wine to really give it the sweet fruity flavor found in sangria. Here’s what I used:

- 1 bottle of white wine
- 1/4 cup sliced Granny Smith apples
- 1/4 cup sliced white peach
- 1/4 cup sliced pear
- 1/4 cup fresh raspberries
- 1/4 cup fresh blackberries
- 1/4 cup fresh strawberries
- 1/4 cup sliced nectarines
- 2 slices lemon
- 1/4 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients into a pitcher. Stir to make sure all sugar is incorporated. Let it sit for a couple hours in the fridge before serving.