Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Tri-Color Stuffed Peppers (slightly adapted from KraftRecipes, Total Time: 55 min., Servings: 8)

I can’t believe that I’ve never written about these stuffed peppers – I feel like they are one of my regular recipes.  Both my husband and I really enjoy them, and use the leftover filling for tortillas.

Ingredients

• 1 bag Morningstar Farms Burger Crumbles
• 1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen corn OR 1 can (14.5 oz.) corn
• 1 ½ cups salsa (medium or hot, or a mixture of both!)
• 1 ½ - 2 cups cooked instant brown rice
• 1 cup nacho or Mexican cheese
• 1-2 each large red, yellow, green, and orange bell pepper (I find that I have less mixture leftover if I used at least 5 whole peppers)
• ½ - 1 cup water

Directions

1.     Heat oven to 400ºF.

2.     Cook crumbles, corn and salsa in large nonstick skillet on medium 5 min. or until heated through, stirring frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in rice and ½  cup cheese; spoon into pepper halves.

3.     Place in 13x9-inch baking dish. Pour water into bottom of dish; cover.

4.     Bake 30 min.; sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered, 10 min. or until cheese is melted.

I like this because the peppers cook nicely, but are still firm.  The mixture is slightly spicy – depending what kind of salsa you use, but manageable for those who aren’t spice-crazy.  The peppers and corn add a nice crunch factor to the otherwise soft-textured dish. Low in calories, high in fiber and protein, and great as leftovers!  In my book, that’s tough to beat J

Stuffed Peppers - Somebody Else's Way

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/stuffed-peppers-my-way/detail.aspx

This stuffed pepper recipe was good, but not great.  I think that it would taste much better with a red, orange, or yellow bell pepper to add some sweetness.  The green peppers were a little too bland for my taste.  The recipe says that it takes 1 hour, but if you multi-task (i.e. roast the peppers while cooking the rice mixture), it only takes about 30 minutes. 

The only change that I made to the recipe was with the Italian seasoning - we didn’t have any, so I mixed together some onion powder, oregano, and sage – it worked well with the other flavors of the dish.  The rice mixture had a somewhat salty taste – from the feta and extra salt – so I plan to cut the salt back to about ½ tsp., or even omit it completely.  The texture of the rice was a good contrast to the more firm consistency of the pepper, but I will roast the peppers for less than 25 minutes so that they are more firm.  Overall, a good dish, but could use some improving to make it more “My Way”.