300 cal Ooey gooey burrito stuffed peppers (with pics)

I was looking for a way to use up some quinoa (which I don't really care for) and stumbled across a couple of recipes for stuffed peppers. I embellished those recipes and ended up with something that tastes a lot like burrito filling in a pepper. It was surprisingly tasty.

Ingredients:

1 cup dried black beans (cooked-should be about 2 or 3ish cups cooked beans)
1 1/2 cups uncooked quinoa or brown rice (I used a combination)
2 medium onions chopped
1 lb mushrooms sliced or chopped
2 cans diced tomatoes
10 oz box frozen chopped spinach (thawed and drained)
6 cloves garlic
2 T chili powder
2 t cumin
2 t paprika
2 cups shredded fat free cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded low fat Mexican blend cheese
8 oz can tomato sauce
2 T Worcesterchire sauce
1 packet sodium-free beef bullion

Sautée onions, 5 garlic cloves & mushrooms
Add spices & tomatoes & Worcestershire sauce
Simmer for a bit
Stir in beans & rice
Stir in 1 cup of each kind of cheese

The recipe I started with said this would create enough stuffing for 4 peppers. Perhaps their peppers were the size of pumpkins? I had about 12 cups of stuffing mix. So at this point, the stuffing mix sat in the fridge for a day and a half while I decided what to do with 12 cups of stuffing mix.

I decided to make 10 stuffed peppers (they make great gifts). Some I took the top off (like carving a pumpkin), some I cut in half lengthwise (like boats). I also cooked some in the crockpot and some in the oven.

I cut/de-seeded/de-ribbed the peppers, then rinsed & dried
I made a cooking sauce with the tomato sauce, bullion, a clove of garlic and enough water to make 2 cups total liquid
Each pepper was filled with 1 cup of stuffing mix (1/2 cup for the "boats") and 1T of each kind of cheese (used 1/2T of each for the boats).

Crockpot version:

Place filled peppers upright in crockpot
Top with cheese
Pour 1 cup cooking sauce over and around the peppers
Cook on high for 5-ish hours (or until peppers are tender)

They look like this:



Oven version:
Precook peppers (boil or microwave coverd in water bath - about 4 minutes either way)
Place filled peppers in baking dish
Pour 1 cup cooking sauce on & around peppers
Cover dish with tin foil
Cook at 350 for 35 minutes (or so)

They look like this:



Remove from oven, uncover
Top peppers with cheese
Bake uncovered 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted

I broiled mine for about 15 seconds to brown the cheese (I have a high-speed infrared broiler).

They look like this:


With the ingredients I used, nutritional info (including peppers, cooking sauce & cheese topping):
Note-this is for 1 full pepper, so 1 upright pepper or 2 of the "boats"

Calories-301
Fat-4g
Carbs-45g
Fiber-9g
Protein-21g
Vitamin A-42%
Vitamin C-168%
Calcium-40%
Iron-21%

Extra delicious topped with sour cream.