Father's Day Celebration with Deep Fried Stuffed Peppers and Homemade Avocado Ice Cream

After going to church yesterday, we went to Ozaka Sushi in Plano for lunch. For Japanese sushi buffets, this is probably the best here in the DFW area. They have a very large selection of seafood, sushi maki, sashimi, soups and hot plates. 

Just as always, we enjoyed the food. Their sushi is always fresh and well prepared -- good rice and appropriately sized slices of fish. The shabu-shabu and teppanyaki stations are both good. They also have a wide dessert selection which though not that Japanese, are so tasty. At Osaka, everything seems to be nicely done all the time. It's one of our favorite restaurants because of the great food, excellent service and awesome atmosphere! Ryan had a really satisfying Father's Day lunch! And so, I can say that Osaka truly provides great value for our money. 

After lunch, we went to watch Mr. Popper's Penguins which both Ryan and I, as well as the girls, loved. It is a very nice movie that shows the importance of family. It is absolutely delightful and has a good message that busy fathers should listen to. If you've got young kids, or even if you don't and you just want to enjoy a good laugh, you should go see this movie. I assure you you'll have a great time.

When we got home around 5pm, both Ryan and I still felt so full from lunch...so we agreed to just have something light for dinner. He asked me to make Fried Stuffed Peppers which we saw last Friday on Kankana'sSunshine and Smile. We found some Anaheim Peppers (which is what Kankana suggested to use) from the Asian Store last Saturday and we bought a dozen. I was planning to make Kankana's fried stuffed peppers today, but Ryan suddenly craved for it yesterday. Since I don't have the other ingredients yet, I just made a totally different filling. He wanted it with meat. Luckily, I had ground pork in the freezer, so that's what I used together with onions, garlic and ginger. I didn't have chickpea flour, so I used all purpose flour instead. Though it didn't turn as gorgeous looking as Kankana's version, it tasted good! It could have been better though if I had chickpea flour. But Ryan liked it and Clarise, who always says she hates pepper, ate 2 pieces. Anaheim peppers are so mild and are really good for stuffed peppers.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I say it's good as either appetizer or snack.

I'm sharing this on Mangia Mondays, Mouthwatering Mondays, Hearth and Soul Hop Hub, Temp My Tummy Tuesdays, Tuesdays At The Table, Delectables Tuesdays and Tasty Tuesdays.

Ingredients:

• 12 fresh anaheim peppers
• ½ lb ground pork
• 1 medium –sized onion, minced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 thumb -sized ginger, minced
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup water
• Vegetable oil

Procedure:

1. Make a slit on the peppers and gently remove the seeds. Make the slits as short as possible. Mine are quite long which I realized was bad because the longer the slits are, the more the filling that comes out while frying.

2. In a skillet over medium heat, saute pork in 1 tbsp oil until it turns light brown. Add onion, garlic, ginger, green onions, salt and pepper. Remove from heat and allow to cool down a little.

3. Stuff peppers with the pork mixture.

4. Bake them at 375 F for about 15 minutes just to soften them. This is however optional. Take them out of the oven and let them cool down completely.

5. In the meantime, mix flour with water and make a thick batter.

6. In a pan, heat enough oil to deep fry.

7. Coat the peppers with the batter nicely.

8. Fry them in medium heat for about 2 minutes until slightly golden brown in color.

After this, we enjoyed some Avocado Ice Cream that I made last Saturday night. I used the same recipe as my mango ice cream. I just replaced the mangoes with avocados.

Oh how I love the taste of avocado ice cream! It's like going back to my childhood when I love eating anything with avocado flavor!

Ryan said this year's Father's Day was awesome just like all the past ones. With the gift and the cards he got from the girls & I...and most of all, the good time and the good food we had together, he truly felt so blessed.