During the week, I often find it challenging to think up dinner ideas. The trouble is I want to eat healthy, but I don’t always have a lot of time to dedicate to cooking. The other challenge is making enough for dinner, plus lunch the following day.
One dinner idea that I continue to come back to is stuffed bell peppers. The beauty of stuffed bell peppers is that you can use almost anything as the filling, and it’s a great lunch item the next day. Below is a slightly altered recipe I plucked from Vegetarian Times, a magazine that offers fantastic recipe ideas for vegetarian cooking. The changes I made to the recipe include substituting pumpkin seeds for walnuts, adding onion for a little extra flavor and finishing the cooked stuffed peppers with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Paired with a glass of wine and these make a slow Wednesday evening just a bit more exciting! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Natalie
Mediterranean Stuffed Bell Peppers
(Serves 4)
4 large bell peppers (preferably yellow, red or orange)
¾ c. cranberry juice
½ small onion, diced
½ c. dried figs, stemmed and chopped
1 c. cooked wild rice
1 c. diced yellow squash
½ feta cheese, crumbled
¼ c. pumpkin seeds
Parmesan cheese, as garnish
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Cut tops off peppers, chop and set aside. Scrape out seeds and ribs with a knife.
- Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a large fry pan. Saute onion and chopped pepper tops over medium heat.
- Lower heat and add figs and juice. Cook over medium-low heat 7 to 10 minutes, or until figs soften and juice reduces and becomes syrupy. Remove from heat, and stir in rice, squash, and feta cheese and pumpkin seeds.
- Fill peppers with mixture, and set in a 9x13-inch baking pan. Add ½ inch water to pan.
- Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until peppers are tender with slightly wrinkled skins and filling is hot.
Yumm!
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