Making dinner for the grown ups (and dessert too!)

I wanted to make a different dinner tonight, but knew the children wouldn't eat it. So I fed them something else and went on to make a nice dinner for the grown ups in this house.
Inspiration for this meal came with this month's issue of Canadian Living, (I'd link the recipe but it doesn't seem to be on the site yet since the issue is still being sold,)
for stuffed peppers.

These peppers are stuffed with toasted bread cubes, garlic, fresh basil and then topped with monterey jack cheese. And amazingly enough, I actually had every item in my house and didn't need a special trip to the store for anything, not even the fresh basil!

And they were so good that I will be making them again. I served them quite cool, almost at room temperature, but the flavors were still vibrant and distinctive. The melted cheese did not over power the peppers, but worked in harmony with them. The toasted bread cubes were subtle but a nice textural contrast to the soft peppers and cheese. And the basil just popped flavor with every bite!

I served these peppers with a pork tenderlion, roasted in the oven with a simple seasoning of salt and pepper. In the last five minutes I basted the loin with a raspberry honey dressing I happened to have in the fridge. The flavor of the raspberry was subtle, but was a nice sweetness to the lean pork.

To go along with this grown up meal, and in need of something warming and comforting on a cold, rainy September, I decided to make a peach-raspberry crumble, served with ice cream. The children were allowed to have this if they wanted, and one of them did. The other just wanted the ice cream but forgot to mention it before I scooped him some.

I don't have a recipe for this because I just winged it. I tossed peeled and slice peaches with a bit of sugar, then added the raspberries and let them meld for a few minutes while I mixed together a crumble made from flour, brown sugar, salt and butter. I baked them until the juices from the fruit were popping up through the browned crumble.

This was not a sweet dessert, which worked well for serving it with ice cream. The peaches weren't quite at peek yet, and the raspberries were tart, making the fruit mixture a good contrast for the slightly sweet crumble and the smooth ice cream. My oldest son was amazed I could make this without a recipe and his response to the taste was, "This dessert Rocks!" I think that means he liked it. :-)

Despite the chaos that went on around me in the kitchen, making three things at once, only one with a recipe, all of them new, I was quite content cooking tonight. Things felt good and the end results made me feel even better about things.

Hope everyone else ate as well today!