Stuffed Peppers

I'm very behind in blogging and so I don't remember exactly how I did these (sorry), but the general idea of a stuffed pepper was easy & pretty tasty and we'll definitely try them again. Ha, granted they'll be different next time based on what we have on hand :)  Have I mentioned I stink at following recipes?

Back in the day, I took a college drawing class, and we had to buy a green bell pepper and draw it for 10 weeks as it turned from green to red, then slowly wrinkled and quickly collapsed & decayed.  It was amazing and actually very beautiful to watch it age.  Even when it was rotten, the skins peeled back to reveal thousands of seeds ready to carry on and give birth to new life. 

Hehe, it's dorky but I've loved the shape and colors of peppers ever since.  So, I couldn't pass up a bag of 6 red bells from Costco while shopping the other day :)  I went ahead and made them all and we enjoyed them for dinner, and then the following day for lunch as leftovers. 

Ingredients:

• 6 red bell peppers
  (*sounds like a lot but I had a bag of them I wanted to use up!  If you only have 2 or so on hand, just use your judgement and make less of the stuffing, knowing there's no exact science to pepper-prepping)
• 1 can of diced tomatoes
• 3 stalks & leaves celery
• 1/2 red onion
• ~1/3 cup of diced sun dried tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat orzo
• 1 cup fresh baby spinach
• ~1/2 cup feta
• ~1/3 cup Italian bread crumbs
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350.  Core and remove the insides of your bell peppers and cut the bottoms flat (removing as little as possible) so that the peppers will "sit up right" in a baking dish.  Dice up your veggies and saute until soft in olive oil.  Meanwhile, prepare your orzo (or other rice/pasta).  Fold the prepared pasta into the veggie mixture adding the bread crumbs, spinach and feta until you reach your desired consistency of pepper filling. 

Then, fill your peppers and fit them side by side in a baking dish. (cute!) Drizzle with olive oil and bake at 350 for ~20 mins until the peppers are softened.  *Hint, you may want to rub them in olive oil and season lightly with salt & pepper before filling & baking.  I didn't do this, but may try this next time just to give them a bit more flavor.  *Here are a couple of pics from the pepper process:

Sauteing the veggies & canned tomatoes in olive oil


adding whole wheat orzo, Italian bread crumbs, feta and fresh baby spinach

stuffed peppers, ready for some oven lovin'

*Drats, we pulled them out and ate them up before I got an "after the oven-lovin'" picture, but they looked basically the same, just a little more cooked through... next time kalamata olives, capers, the add-ins are endless!