How to Dice an Onion

I cook with onion all the time.
One year for Christmas my husband bought me the Slap Chop (for real) to help me save time with all my dicing, chopping and slapping.
It was totally terrible. I threw it out after about four very unsuccessful attempts at dicing mastery.

Instead of gadgets, I use a trick my friend Keith showed me years ago, a trick I think you will all love.

I have tried to show you in the below picture, but, basically cut the onion in even strips in one direction, then rotate the onion, keeping it facing upwards, and slice in even strips, so you have a hatched pattern.

Then, turn your onion on its side and when you slice your onion evenly, all of your pieces will be perfect little squares. I love this trick and hope you do, too!

Turkish Inspired Stuffed Peppers

While in Istanbul last week I ate the most incredible foods.
One dish that stood out was a stuffed tomato I had as part of a mixed mezze platter.
The tomato was baked and filled with an aromatic rice, nuts and onions. The best part was the hint of cinnamon.

As I had no tomatoes large enough, I used red peppers I bought from the local market instead. Instead of rice, I felt like couscous, so I used that. I also tossed in some dried apricots as a lot of Turkish dishes have apricots and I think they make everything tastier. Martha would agree.

They turned out like heaven. Simple, easy, tasty heaven.

What You'll Need (four servings):

• Four large red peppers
• Tinfoil
• Baking pan
• 1 cup or 250 g of Couscous
• 1 cup or 250 g of boiling water
• 1 Onion
• 1/2 cup or 125 g of chopped Green onion
• 1/4 cup or 63g of fresh pine nuts
• 1/4 cup or 63 g of dried apricots
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 Tsp of your best cinnamon, I like this one from The Silk Road Merchants in Calgary

What You'll Do:

• Dice your onion into small cubes, like this
• Dice your dried apricots into small pieces
• Chop your green onion into fine pieces
• In a small, non-stick frying pan, add in your diced onion, just covered in water, and simmer until softened
• Cut the top of each pepper off and empty all the seeds
• Trim down the bottom of each pepper, so they stand straight up in the pan
• Pre-heat your oven to 190C or 350F 
• Line your baking tray in tin foil to help prevent the peppers from sticking
• Boil one cup of water on the stove top
• When boiled, add in your couscous and remove from heat, cover with a lid
• Place your empty peppers into the oven to cook for about ten minutes
• After five minutes of resting, fluff your couscous (as it can get sticky) and add in your cinnamon, a twist of freshly ground pepper, sauteed onion, chopped green onion, chopped apricot and pine nuts
• Stir until thoroughly mixed
• Remove your partially cooked peppers
• Stuff each pepper with enough couscous mixture to fill it to the top
• Bake the peppers for another ten minutes

Enjoy!

These babies go great with chicken or salmon...or on their own. So easy, so tasty.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2 (they are so colourful...just like Martha's language)
Taste: 2 (the hint of cinnamon makes them taste so exotic)
Ease: 2 (if they were any easier, they would be my sister....I kid, of course)