Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Stuffed Peppers

We found this recipe on 24 hour fitness's website a long time ago and it has made our rotation of meals.  It's easy, healthy and tasty!  We like making this on Sundays or in the beginning of the week so we have lots of leftovers to take to work for lunch.

The recipe on their website was vegetarian, but we added turkey meat to it.  You can probably make it with ground beef also.

Ingredients from the recipe (our way):
(optional) 1 lb of ground turkey
8 large green, red or yellow bell peppers or a combination (5 or 6 red peppers cut in half)
3 cups of cooked rice (packaged wild rice, usually Uncle Ben's)
1 can black beans, drained
1 can corn, drained (1 bag of frozen corn)
1 medium onion chopped
1 can green chilies, chopped
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (about 1/8 cup)
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Prepare the rice as directed on the package.

Fill large stockpot with enough water to cover peppers and bring to boil.  Cut the tops off the pepper, removing as little of the pepper as possible.  (We just cut them in half).  Remove seed and inner membrane.  Blanch peppers in boiling water for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Saute the onions (we usually add some garlic here).  Add the turkey and cook until no longer pink.  Add the rice, beans, corn, green chilies, liquid smoke, cumin and salt and pepper to taste.  Fill each pepper and stand upright (or fill each pepper half like we do) in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish that has been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Cover pan with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Remove foil, sprinkle with cheese and bake another 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

(vegetarian option) You can also add crumbled tofu in place of some of the rice to increase the amount of protein.

Preparing the Peppers

Blanching the Peppers

Preparing Rice in the Rice Cooker (this was a Trader Joe's mix)

Sauteing Onions and Garlic

Combined Onions, Turkey, Black Beans, Corn, Green Chilies

Mixture with rice added.  We chose a rice mixture that made a lot of rice this time, usually it's not this much!

The Finished Product.

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