I don't like gourmet cooking or "this" cooking or "that" cooking. I like good cooking.-James Beard

Microwave Stuffed Peppers

4 large peppers, 1 pound extra-lean ground turkey meat, 1/3 cup water, 1 envelope dry onion soup mix, 1/2 cup low calorie marinara sauce, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Wash peppers, cut off tops and remove seeds. Place in a microwave safe pan and cover. Microwave on high for about 6 minutes. Microwave peppers until they are partially soft but remain firm. In the meantime, brown turkey meat in large saucepan and drain all fat.

In a small bowl, mix the dry soup with water. Pour the mixture over the cooked turkey and stir. Simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes, stir occasionally. Spoon 1/4 of turkey mixture into each pepper, filling to the top. Spoon marinara and Parmesan cheese over each pepper.

Microwave peppers in microwave safe pan, covered, for about 2 minutes on high.

This recipe comes from my roommate's binder o' random recipes. I've been slowly typing up each one that I like and making my own word document o' random recipes.

Ground turkey, we meet again. You taste good if I mask your flavor with salt, pepper, and extra marinara sauce. It's so unfortunate but I just cannot get my taste buds around ground turkey. It just feels so weak and limp in flavor. I don't want to have to dump marinara sauce on the turkey to get me to eat it. That's how parents get their kids to eat veggies, by masking their taste with something else. It's just not worth it, which is such a shame because I had a fantastic workout after eating the turkey meat. I loved this dish, I just need to sub the ground beef for turkey.

I paired my stuffed pepper with mini potatoes and kale, the super leafy green. I like my kale spicy and I'm working on cooking it just right. I've been adding paprika and black pepper. It'll be a long time before I make Mrs. Raboy kale, aka the spiciest and most delicious kale you'll eat.

My tongue is smiling.-Abigail Trillin

C-House

Who knew Top Chef Master winner Marcus Samuelsson had a Chicago restaurant? Despite Samuelsson's unattractive personality on the show, he won for a reason. I was debating between his restaurant, C-House, or Top Chef Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard's restaurant, Girl & the Goat, for my birthday festivities. But Girl & the Goat is in a super random and far location and getting 8 people on a 30 minute bus ride is undesirable. So I went with C-House.

Lately I've been ordering one or two appetizers and a side dish for my meal. My obsession with tapas is carrying over into non-tapas restaurants. I had a lamb chop appetizer with kale, tomatoes and two potatoes in lamb jus and a side of goat cheese and pork sausage macaroni and cheese. Lamb was perfectly cooked and the kale was spicy and not in texture, the way some leafy greens are. Macaroni and cheese with goat cheese, why have I not had this before? I love traditional mac & cheese but this goat cheese was a welcome addition to the cheddar. Pork sausage was good but super spicy.

I also had a bite of the yellow tail tacos. Basically sushi in a crunchy tortilla. Baller. However, my one complaint about nearly everything I tried (minus the pork sausage and kale): bland. Bland, bland, lacking salt bland. I had to add salt to everything.

C-House

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.- Orson Welles

Xoco

On the final day of Jane's visit, I took us to Xoco, the gourmet street food from Rick Bayless. I've tried several times to go but the line is always about 45 minutes long. But at 1:15 on a Friday, we only waited 15 minutes.

I had the Pepito Torta which is braised Tallgrass beef shortribs with carmelized onion, artisan Jack cheese, black beans, and pickled jalapenos. This sandwich was not short on meat but it was definitely short on cheese. The jalapenos were spicy, maybe too spicy, but still good enough to eat. The shortribs weren't rich at all, which is rare. I saw a lot of great things on the menu and if they are all as good as the Pepito Torta, then I have to go back.

I washed everything down with a glass of their house-made lemonade. It was tangy, slightly sour. But amazing, best lemonade I've ever had. Not too watery and not sugary tasting. I'd go back solely for the lemonade.

Xoco

I eat merely to put food out of my mind.-N.F. Simpson

Nacional 27

My friend Jane is in town and so I thought we'd do a little Culinary Tour of Chicago 2011. I'm gonna mix in some restaurants I enjoy with one's I've never tried. I always see signs for Nacional 27, the Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group's Latin American restaurant and I thought that now would be the perfect time to try it.

Jane and I started with an app of grilled vegetable empanadas. They were stuffed with a couple types of squash, including chayote which is Latin American in origin. I've become so much more adventurous with vegetables and I now enjoy squash. The empanadas were drizzled with a chili crema and sat on top of meaty tomatoes and avocado. The empanadas were crispy and bite size while the crema wasn't dumped on top of them. I don't think of empanadas as gourmet but these really changed my mind.

I had roast suckling pig for my main course. Spicy, smoked, and tender. The pig came with rice and black beans, chicarrones, caramelized onion mashed cuban sweet potatoes, and eggplant with spicy tomatoes. That's a mouthful! I usually don't like sweet potato but whatever Nacional 27 did to these made me enjoy them. I could've done without the chicarrones. They tasted like what they are: fried, crunchy fat with little flavor. No thanks. But everything else was delicious. Very spicy which probably made me eat slower, which always helps with digestion.

For dessert, churros. Usually when I think of churros I think of long, fried dough covered with cinnamon and sugar that you dip in chocolate soup. Nay! These were small dough balls topped with caramel ice cream and chocolate sauce. Crunchy and sugary with an excellent balance of cream. Churros reimagined.

Nacional 27 put me into my third trimester with my food baby. Sushi may be my favorite food, but with the amazing Latin American cuisine I've had in my lifetime, Latin American food may be my favorite cuisine.

Nacional 27