Friday, September 4, 2009

My First Venture w/ STUFFED PEPPERS

Stuffed Peppers are something I enjoy to eat but have never attempted to make. My motivation sprang from a sale on bell peppers at Harvest. Usually a sale on bell peppers only refers to the green, and if you're lucky the red. I was shocked to read the sign and saw that the $1.99 a pound sale also included the yellow and orange, and they didn't even look old and shriveled! In a perfect world, I would always buy yellow and orange peppers, but since I try to food shop on a budget, I rarely treat myself to these goodies.
At the grocery store I felt like a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter when I put 6 fabulous looking colored peppers into my basket. I headed back to my nest to dig out a stuffed pepper recipe i read months ago in Vegetarian Times magazine.

Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers
This is the recipe I followed but of course I made some modifications to accommodate my pantry but they are purely optional
  • I cut the recipe in half to make 6 stuffed pepper halves
  • Substituted Barley for Quinoa (i'm not a quinoa hater its just what I had in the pantry!)
  • Did not have celery, instead used finely diced squash and green bell pepper
  • Used sauteed fresh spinach instead of frozen
  • Tip: Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes w/Adobo seasoning works really great here with the southwestern flavors. If not available use regular fire roasted and add the said amount of cumin

The extra stuffing is wonderful on it's own- I thought of you Riane because the consistency came out to be like a barley risotto!

3 comments:

  1. look so yummmyyyy. I'm always looking for stuffed peppers recipes that aren't boring rice!

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  2. mmmmm, maybe just found dinner tonight ;)

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  3. Mmm...I tried this recipe the other night and it was DELICIOUS! The fact that you can put almost any vegetable in these biddies makes them so easy! NOM NOM NOM

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