Stuffed Green Peppers

My roommate and I decided that once we got back from Christmas break we were going to work out and attempt to eat healthier. You know, the typical and basic New Year's resolution. It is so easy to just buy frozen dinners or go through the drive through. We have been pretty good not to do that. We just need to change the meals we plan, or at least some of the meals. I still like to eat my cheese and crescent rolls. Eating health is quite tough in college, but we are trying! 

We've come across a lot of yummy looking meals, including this one. The only thing that I changed are the portions. Since there is just me and Leslie, I changed the recipe from four peppers to two peppers. If you want the original recipe with the actual portions you can either double what I have under ingredients or visit Kalyn's kitchen. Lately, we have been eating a lot of cheese filled, hefty meals, so it was nice biting into this very light and very colorful meal!

 Serve it hot and with a yummy side*. 

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown rice

2 large green bell peppers

half an onion, diced

2 tsp + 1 tsp olive oil

1 link of Sweet Italian Sausage - Turkey

~for vegetarians: use diced mushrooms in place of sausage~

1/4 tsp dried oregano 

~Greek or Turkish is preferred, I just used plain oregano~

Salt and ground pepper, to taste

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/8 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Directions

Oven: 375

While oven is preheating, cook rice according to package directions, or if you're cool and have a rice cooker, use that. 

Trim bottom of bell peppers so they have a flat surface to stand on.

Cut off a fairly generous amount of the stem end of pepper.

Remove seeds.

Place hollowed-out peppers in a baking dish that is sprayed with non-stick spray or olive oil.

(It is best too cook is a dish that is close in size to the peppers)

Remove stem part from the pepper caps and trim off any white membrane.

Dice pepper caps and the onion into fairly small dices. 

Heat 2 tsp of olive oil in a large skillet.

Saute diced pepper and onion for 3-4 minutes until they are soften, but aren't brown.

Remove pepper-onion mixture to a bowl.

Add 1 tsp olive oil.

Then, squeeze sausage out of casing and cook until lightly browned, breaking apart with the cooking utensil.

Put the onion-pepper mixture back into the pan with the sausage.

Add oregano to pan and saute for 2-3 minutes.

Then add cooked rice and Parmesan cheese, season with salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Cook just long enough to warm, about 1-2 minutes.

Stuff the mixture into the hollowed-out peppers, using a spoon to press the mixture down so it is tightly packed into the pepper. 

If you have any extra stuffing, you can put it in a small oven safe bowl and cook with the peppers.

Bake peppers for 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and put a generous pinch of mozzarella on top of peppers.

Bake for about 10-15 minutes more, until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

SERVE HOT

You can freeze any leftover peppers**

TATER RATER

Suggestions: Unless you really love green peppers, I wouldn't put diced peppers in the filling.

*Tater made our side, which was spicy buffalo cauliflower bites. It was actually pretty darn tasty with some kick too it.

**You can freeze leftover peppers for a month or two, although the frozen peppers will be a little softer texture (but still tasty.) Cut them in half top-to-bottom before freezing.