I sometimes decide to make random things I’ve never made (or had) before and can’t stop thinking about it until I do so. This week, it was stuffed peppers. Tuesday’s trip to the CSA yielded 6 green bell peppers, among other things and last night I put my (rather spontaneous, recipe-less) plan into action.
For a meal created without a recipe, these peppers came out pretty good. We ended up adding a bit of salt and they could’ve used more herbs, but they definitely weren’t bad. An even better, and unintended, result was that my husband felt completely full afterwards, which is apparently a rarity. I guess I need to work on making more filling meals for the poor guy.
There are a million stuffed pepper variations, this is mine. They’re sort of Italian-style…with black beans. Stuffed peppers are a fabulous way to use up bits of ingredients in your pantry. The half an onion, leftover beans, half box of pasta and that bit of cheese you don’t know what to do with? This is it. If you’ve got rice or quinoa or other vegetables, use those. I didn’t buy anything specifically for this recipe besides the peppers and they turned out really well.
Also, I would like it apologize in advance for our harsh kitchen lighting. It is very non-conductive to food photography.
Ingredients
- 6 bell peppers
- 4 oz uncooked orzo pasta
- 1 tomato
- 1 cup black beans (or whatever beans you have on hand)
- 1/2 of an onion
- 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
- salt
- fresh basil
- fresh oregano
- mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Cook the orzo according to package directions.
- While the orzo cooks, cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds.
- Dice the tomato and onion. Finely chop the basil and oregano.
- Drain the orzo and transfer it to a mixing bowl. Add the tomato, onion, ricotta, black beans, salt and herbs to the bowl. Mix well.
- Stuff each of the peppers full of the orzo filling.
- Top each pepper with a bit of shredded mozzarella cheese. Cover with foil and cook at 350° for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for another 10-15 minutes until the cheese has browned a bit (or, in our case, until you can't wait any more)
- Serve and enjoy!
