Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers

Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers

Today's recipe is for Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers. It is a vegetarian dish and you can add as many different vegetables to the stuffing as you'd like.

Servings-6

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa rinsed and dried
2 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion diced
1 carrot diced
1 cup corn
2 cups sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon parsley (fresh or dried)
salt and black pepper to taste ( around 1/2 teaspoon black pepper and 1 teaspoon salt)
6 bell peppers, washed, seeded and tops cut off
Feel free to add spices of your choice or some chicken stock to the vegetable mixture


Directions:

1. Prepare quinoa. Mix it with water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer until quinoa is tender and cooked. It usually takes 15-20 minutes.
2. In a large pot bring water to a boil. Boil each pepper for no more than 1 minute. This will help skin come off the peppers easier.
3. Preheat oven to 350F
4. In a large skillet heat olive oil (can use any vegetable oil) over medium heat. Add onion and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add carrots, mushrooms, tomato sauce, basil and cook for 10 minutes until vegetables are tender and water from mushrooms disappear.
5. Add quinoa to vegetable mixture. Add lemon juice, salt, pepper and parsley and mix well.
6. Sprinkle salt over bell peppers. Fill them with quinoa-vegetable mixture. Put peppers in baking dish and add some water to the bottom of the dish. You can cover each pepper with its top, that you previously cut off or cover dish with aluminum foil.
7. Bake on preheated over until peppers are tender . It takes at least 30 minutes. Serve warm.