I’ve met a lot of wonderful people since I’ve moved to Connecticut; it’s almost been surprising. It’s not easy making new friends at my age because most people already have their well-established cliques or group of friends and aren’t looking to include anyone new in their circle. Anyway, the person who gave me today’s recipe is one of my closest friends here and I am grateful that we found each other 🙂
Ingredients: 3 bell peppers (doesn’t matter what color), 1 c. short grain brown rice, 1 can of black beans, 1/2 can of corn, 1/2 onion, garlic, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 tblsp olive oil, shredded cheese, 1 cup Morningstar Griller crumbles (optional), salt and pepper
This dish took longer than I expected. It was mostly the rice which is one of the reasons that I’m not a huge fan of rice because it takes so long to cook. At first, I had the rice cooking separately in a small pot while the other ingredients simmered in a large pan but I ended up transferring the rice and cooking everything together. Altogether, it took about an hour for the rice to cook; and if you follow the directions on the bag, it says around 45 min to an hour.
<
First, saute the onion, garlic, and Griller crumbles with a little olive oil in a pan. After the crumbles are cooked, add the rice. For 1 cup of brown rice, add 2 cups of water. After that has boiled for a while, add the diced tomatoes, black beans, and corn (drained). Let it all simmer on the stove for about an hour covered. Keep checking and stirring periodically, add water if needed to finish cooking the rice. Also, add the salt and pepper to taste and whatever other seasonings you feel are needed.
For the bell peppers, I used one of each color. I cut the green and red pepper horizontally (just cut the top with the stem off) and cut out the insides that way. I cut the yellow pepper vertically just to see which one I would prefer…I think I like the way I cut the green and red peppers best.
After cutting the peppers and removing the insides, grab an extra pot and put them in boiling water for a few minutes. This makes them softer while the rice mixture is cooking. Preheat the oven to 350.
When the rice mixture is finished, fill the bell pepper cups with it and place them in a pan. Put them in the oven for about 15 to 20 min.
After taking out of the oven, sprinkle cheese and enjoy. The bell pepper cups make the presentation so pretty and makes me feel like a contestant on Chopped or something. I had two and it was really filling and delicious!
Food Therapy 