Quinoa & Spinach Stuffed Roasted Peppers

Just had to share my awesome dinner concoction I made up last night. It was SUPER delicious – SUPER nutritious, and SUPER filling & the leftovers can be frozen. I basically hadn’t been to the store, didn’t thaw any meat & had to come up with something using what I’d picked from the garden recently & what I had in the house.

Quinoa & Spinach Stuffed Roasted Peppers:

8 Roasted Red peppers (roast these yourself so they stay firm, do not use ones from a jar, they will get mushy & fall apart)

Filling:

3 C cooked quinoa (1C dry)
6-8 cloves chopped garlic (I use a lot of garlic, use as much as you like)
A small chopped onion (I used a regular onion, but I think some green or red onions or scallions would be better)
2 16oz boxes of frozen spinach (thawed)
1 can of artichoke hearts (roughly chopped)
2C shredded mozzarella cheese

You can also add any other ingredients you may have as leftovers or that is just laying around. In my case I had a little leftover asparagus & some sun dried tomatoes. Any chopped up veggies, mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. – this is a great way to use up those leftovers.

Topping:

2TBS of butter (melted)
1/4C of freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4C bread crumbs

Ok, so, start by roasting your peppers, I do them on my gas stove, right in the flame until they are charcoaled all over. I put them into a small paper bag until they cool. Cut the tops off, clean out the insides & scrape off the black parts. Done.

Then sautee the garlic & onions in a non-stick skillet. Add a little olive oil if you need to. Toss in the thawed spinach, don’t bother to drain & squeeze it, the liquid will cook out. Add in your quinoa, artichoke hearts & whatever other veggies you decide to add. Mix it all up well, heat through & then turn off the heat. Toss in the shredded mozzarella & stir until it melts. Stuff the peppers. Combine the bread crumbs, cheese & melted butter & top the peppers. Bake @ 350 for about half an hour until the peppers are heated through & the topping gets brown.

I expected these to be pretty good, but they were way better than I expected & my husband wouldn’t shut up about how fantastic they were. I didn’t expect him to enjoy a meatless meal as much as he did. I entered this recipe into MFP & it came out at 218 calories per pepper. And I only ate half of one along with half of an acorn squash & I was completely full & satisfied. Very filling!! Even so, you can always play with the recipe to make it even lighter. I didn’t use light cheese & you could replace the butter in the topping with a few squirts of I Can’t Believe it’s not Butter Spray. Or omit the topping all together, or melt light cream cheese in the filling instead of mozzarella, the possibilities are endless.