Zucchini and Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Made these guys tonight, and I could not wait to post about it. They were so delicious, the kids chowed down. Not to mention, super healthy and vegetarian too! I'm going to start doing Meatless Monday in our house. As you know, I do cook quite a bit of vegetarian recipes, but this is a commitment to make one day a week meat free. I accept the challenge, and hope to come up with some really great veggie meals!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 red onion finely diced
• 1 shallot finely diced
• 4 cloves of garlic minced
• 2 medium zucchinis shredded and drained (I put mine through the grater on the food processor) 
• 1 cup corn
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups cooked quinoa 
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil
• 4 large bell peppers cut in half long ways with seeds and ribbing taken out
• a handful of halved cherry tomatoes 
• mozzarella and parmesan cheese for topping

In a large sauté pan heat up some olive oil over medium heat, and add in the onion and shallot. Cook about 5 minutes until translucent, then add in garlic and cook another 1-2 minutes. Add in zucchini, corn and quinoa and seasonings. Cook about 5 minutes until all of the flavors are married together. Season to taste, if it needs a little more of something add it. 

Arrange the halved peppers in a 9x13 baking dish, and evenly distribute the zucchini quinoa mixture into each half pepper. Place a few of the sliced cherry tomatoes in each pepper and top with mozzarella and parm cheese.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until the peppers are fork tender and the cheese is melted. 

These were so flavorful, easy to make, and completely guilt free. They would also make a great side dish with some meat too. Cheers!

                                              

                                               Ollie loving his stuffed pepper tonight!

Adapted from: Quinoa stuffed bell peppers

Mushroom Cheddar Burger Stuffed Peppers

I haven't made stuffed peppers in a while. Then the other day it occurred to me that I had a few things in my fridge that would make some pretty awesome ones. This recipe is a just a little  something I threw together- I hope you dig it as much as we did!

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 green bell peppers, halved and scooped out
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 cloves crushed garlic
• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1 cup of leftover white rice
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup of shredded cheese ( I used cheddar) to top peppers with
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup red cooking wine
• salt and pepper to taste

Take halved peppers and place in a pot with just enough water to cover them. Place a cover on the pot and cook on medium high heat for about 10 minutes until the peppers are softened. 

In a skillet over medium high heat, melt the butter and add the olive oil. Add in onions and cook for about  5 minutes until starting to brown. Add in crushed garlic and mushrooms. Sauté together for another few minutes until the mushrooms have soaked in some of the juices from the pan. Throw in the red wine to deglaze and simmer for another 2-3 minutes. Remove the veggies from pan and set aside.

Throw the ground beef into the hot pan and sauté until no longer pink. Add the veggies back in along with the rice and cook everything together for another minute or two and add salt and pepper to taste.

Cover the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish in a little bit of olive oil and crushed garlic. Arrange the halved peppers in the baking dish. Distribute evenly all of the filling into the peppers and top them with the shredded cheese.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until all the cheese is melted.

These came out great! I actually took one of the leftover halves, cut it up and put it on toasted bread for lunch today. It was pretty much an awesome fake out steak and cheese. Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers with Ground Turkey and Feta

                                                  

For the past few months, whenever I've made stuffed peppers they've been vegetarian. So I decided to try my hand at a meat filled stuffed pepper for once. They came out awesome, and this is how I did it.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 Bell peppers (there was enough filling to do 4-5 peppers)
• 1.5 lbs ground turkey
• 1/2 of a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used the rest for my zucchini parm subs the next night)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 stalks of celery small diced
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste ( again I used the rest of the small can for zucchini parm)
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried red pepper
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1- 1/2  cups crumbled feta cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet on the stove. Once hot, add the onion and celery, and saute for 5 minutes until soft. Add the minced garlic and continue sauteing for another minute.

Turn the heat to high. Add the tomato paste to the skillet and mash the onions, celery and garlic together with the paste. Cook for three minutes, stirring continuously.

Add the ground turkey and brown with the veggies. This should take about six minutes.

Then, add the diced tomatoes, salt, basil, oregano and red pepper flakes. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for about 15-20 minutes, until sauce reduces and isn’t as runny. Remove pan from heat and stir in the feta cheese.

Place the green bell peppers on a tin foil-lined sheet tray. Fill each pepper with turkey and feta mixture. Add a littly more feta on top. Once all peppers have been filled, cover peppers with a large piece of tin foil and seal.

Bake peppers for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

These came out really delicious and is something I'd most definitely make again. I served these with roasted red potatoes, which are extremely easy to make.

                                   

INGREDIENTS:

• 5-6 small red potatoes, washed and cut into bit sized pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

Combine all ingredients and place in a foil lined baking dish. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes or until you can pierce potato with a fork.

The combination of these two dishes were amazing- I highly recommend doing them together! 

CREDITS:ground turkey and feta stuffed peppers

Steak and Cheese Stuffed Peppers

A little weird for someone, prior to last week, that had never made stuffed peppers before- now be making them twice in 2 weeks. Last week I did couscous, corn and black bean stuffed peppers - and they came out amazing!! I loved it so much that I really wanted to do a stuffed pepper with meat in it this week.

I feel like every time I cook small cuts of beef for steak and cheese or stir fries I over cook it. The beef is always grey looking and super rubbery. And Even though I could be using the freshest ingredients- the dishes were always lacking. So, when I saw a variation of this recipe and that they were using roast beef from the deli, I was thrilled!! I didn't have to cook my own beef, and it was gong to be awesomely easy. And it was. Tonight was Oliver's 1st birthday dinner, and I wanted him to have something he hasn't tried before.

                                                               INGREDIENTS:

• 3 Bell peppers halved and gutted
• 1 Onion diced
• 1 cup Sliced mushrooms
• 1 table spoon minced garlic
• 3/4 Pound of thin and trim roast beef shredded
• 1/4 pound of sliced swiss cheese (or whatever you have on hand)
• 1/4 cup shredded jack cheese
• Salt to taste
• Pepper to taste
• 1 table spoon worcestershire  sauce
• 1 table spoon steak sauce

Place pepper half's in a pot of water on the stove, simmer for 10 minutes to just lightly soften the peppers.

While peppers are simmering, in a pan sautee onions and bit of left over pepper in olive oil, salt and pepper until soft, add garlic and mushrooms and a little more olive oil. Sautee until mushrooms soften.

Add in the beef, salt, pepper, and sauces. Cook about 2 minutes to combine flavors.

Arrange peppers in a baking dish, put cheese in the bottom of each pepper, then add your steak filling. Top with the 

remainder of the cheese. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes until cheese is melted.

This is a great low-carb version of a steak and cheese sandwich. I cut a stuffed pepper up and the kids ate it on top of linguine. We ate ours with a side salad and baked potato. 



Credits:
Philly Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed Peppers with Black Beans, CousCous, Corn & Mushrooms

This is going to be my first attempt to make stuffed peppers. I never have used the ingredient like this before, but of course I've seen it done a million times. 

I think this is really clever doing a 'south west meets middle eastern'  take on the idea. Especially since I'm turning this into a vegetarian dish. I'm always looking for really awesome (easy ) things to make vegetarian. My sister in law who spends a lot of time with us is vegetarian, as well as some really close friends we frequently have dinner with. 

Ingredients:

• 3 Bell peppers halved and gutted
• Any chopped up innards salvaged from peppers
• 1 1/2 cup cooked cous cous
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 onion diced
• 1 big handful drained, rinsed, canned black beans
• 1 big handful drained canned diced tomatoes
• 1 cup canned corn
• minced garlic
• salt
• pepper
• oregano
• paprika
• garlic powder
• chili powder
• red pepper flakes

Start off by blanching the peppers for a few minutes in boiling water to soften. Since everything is going to be cooked when we fill and bake the peppers, we just want them softened so they completely cook when we bake them.

Next prepare your couscous according to directions, and set aside.

Next we are going to prepare the filling. Start by sautéing the onions, peppers left over, and garlic- to soften about 5 minutes.

Then add the mushrooms and cook until softened.

       

                      
Next add the corn, tomatoes and black beans along with the seasonings mentioned above. I just usually do a little dash of each just to flavor

Finally add in the couscous you have set aside

Put the blanched peppers in a baking dish

Fill them up ( I thought I was going to have way to much filling but I filled those bad boys up and it ended up being a perfect amount) & Top with cheese

And bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is completely melted.

Garnish with Cilantro, Green and Red onions, and some Sour Cream.

This meal came out amazing. I sliced the mushrooms big so that would be almost like the 'meat' of the dish, since there is none. And by slicing the peppers in half and leaving them open faced, rather than cutting the top off and stuffing them like typical stuffed peppers, makes a lot more. 

I used large cans of tomatoes, corn and black beans. I would say you can get small cans of each and this would be a perfect amount for the 3 peppers sliced in half. I had a lot of left overs so what I did is made a black bean and corn salsa, with the left overs from the cans and some red onion and cilantro. I will be able to keep this in the fridge and use this for a few different things over the next few days. Even though there was a lot left over from this dish, it will not go to waste in this house!

Credits:

Black bean and Couscous stuffed Peppers