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Stuffed Red Bell Peppers

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Tomorrow is Go Red for Women Day, so I thought I would make the petite pilaf I featured last week and use it to stuff red bell peppers. According to http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables, red bell peppers are very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. They are also a good source of Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Potassium and Manganese, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin B6 and Folate. (While this web page notes a large portion of the calories in this food come from sugars, I think that since these are naturally forming sugars as part of the plant, they are acceptable, unless you are allergic to nightshade veggies. es)

I used the quinoa/aduki pilaf from last week’s recipe* to stuff these.

Utensils: Shallow saucepan for pilaf; steamer basket & pot for steamer; oven proof dish
Prep. Time: About 10 minutes, but part of cooking time
Cooking Time: About 15-20 minutes
Categories: Gluten-free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free (no sugar added, not the natural sugars in the peppers), Salt optional

Ingredients

See pilaf recipe by scrolling down to last week’s posting called Quinoa/Aduki Petite Pilaf
Red Bell Peppers, washed, cut in half lengthwise, seeds and membranes removed
* You will need about 1/2 cup pilaf for each pepper half, more or less depending on the size of your pepper.

Directions

1. While preparing the beans and the quinoa from last week’s postings, put water in steamer pot & bring to a boil, place pepper halves in steamer basket, and steam for 8-10 minutes. Peppers should still be a little firm, but more tender than raw.

2. Place pepper halves into an ovenproof pan. Scoop cooked pilaf into the halves and bake for just a couple of minutes. (If you make the pilaf earlier in the day or the day before, you will have to bake the peppers long enough to heat the pilaf.) Because the peppers are in half and less deep than stuffing the whole pepper, watch that you don’t burn the peppers.

3. Serve hot with a side salad and green vegetable. For additional protein (quinoa is highin portien), place some grated cheese on the pilaf before putting peppers in the oven.

Note: I made my stuffed peppers this morning and heated them in a 400 degree oven tonight. The pilaf was a little dry from standing in the frig, so I added a little oil to the top of the pilaf. The dish was very colorful and tasty! I served it with oven-grilled asparagus, since the oven was already on.

 

 

P.S. On my Home Page I posted this website: www.goredforwomen.org/wearredday. The site mentioned Go Red stickpins were available for $2.00 at Macy’s for the next few days. Also, you receive a 20% discount if you buy the pin & also another item or if you are wearing red. Since I was going to Trader Joe’s & Macy’s is around the corner, I bought a pin and also some red socks to wear tomorrow. So find something red to wear to raise awareness of women & heart disease. The pin is tiny, but the color & shape are eye-catching.

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Quinoa & Aduki Beans: A “Petite” Pilaf

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Quinoa * and aduki beans* are two star performers in my kitchen. In Jonny Bowden’s book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, which I reviewed last  summer, he makes quinoa one of his stars, as well. (*Also listed in my Glossary. )

Bowden explains how the Incas revered quinoa as “the mother of grains.” (Actually, it is a seed and enjoyed by people on a gluten-free diet.) Bowden goes on to say that…”The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common grain cereal grains…” It is also higher in the amino acid lysine, which is not plentiful in the vegetable kingdom. Bowden also notes that quinoa is higher in calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper,manganese and zinc and lower in sodium than wheat, corn or barley. Finally, this mother grain is higher in iron than any other cereal grain with a hefty dose of fiber.

As you can see, quinoa is quite tiny and therefore cooks very quickly. Don’t be fooled by its size; it is a nutritional powerhouse!

Beans also receives a star in Bowden’s book, but for specific information on aduki (also spelled adzuki) beans, I Googled this food and came up with a statement next to a photo of Arrowhead Mills’ organic aduki beans:  “Adzuki Beans are a Japanese favorite (also known as aduki) and have a similar flavor to red beans. A good source of protein and fiber, they are delicious in soups and can be substituted for red and pinto beans in other tasty recipes. Excellent source of Folate / Good Source of Fiber, Protein, Potassium and Phosphorus.”

Aduki (adzuki) are beans are also small, although not so small as quinoa. Together they make a petite pilaf!

Putting these two ingredients together, the tiny yellow seed and the small red beans,  creates a powerhouse pilaf*, posted below:  (From my Glossary: *Pilaf - Also spelled pilau, perloo, perlau, plaw, pilaw, and pilaff, is a Middle Eastern and Central and South Asian dish in which a grain, such as rice or cracked wheat, is generally first browned in oil, and then cooked in a seasoned broth. Depending on the local cuisine it may also contain a variety of meat and vegetables.  Source: www.wikipedia.com)

Utensils: Cutting board & knife, strainer, large (shallow) saucepan, one deeper saucepan
Prep. Time: about 15 minutes with cooked beans+
Cooking Time: About 15 minutes
Categories: Vegan, Gluten Free, Sugar Free,Low Sodium 
+I used dried aduki beans that I had soaked and sprouted and then put in the freezer until needed. You can use canned or dried ones that you cook for 45 minutes before adding them to the dish. By sprouting and freezing them, I needed only 15 minutes to cook them.

Ingredients

one cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained
2 cups water or stock 
1 T. coconut oil
one cup aduki beans, sprouted & frozen, or canned, or dried
1/4 c. diced onion
one garlic clove, minced
one grated carrot
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp. (or more) curry powder

Directi0ns

1. Place 2 cups of water or stock in the deeper saucepan and bring to a boil. (If you are cooking adukis from scratch or using sprouted ones from the freezer, put up another 2 cups of water and cook the beans separately in another pot while preparing everything else.)
2.  Place quinoa in a strainer (not colander because the grains may slip through) and rinse thoroughly. Allow to drain.
Put one tablespoon of coconut oil+ in shallow saucepan and add the grains. Sauté the quinoa in the oil until they are separated, maybe 5 minutes, since quinoa is a small grain and cooks quickly. (You may also use olive oil so long as the heat is not  too high.  Using coconut oil with its high smoke point makes this step more acceptable to me, because I generally don’t like to fry foods.)
3. Add onion, garlic, and carrot and mix with pilaf. By this time the stock should be boiling or almost boiling, so you can add it to the shallow sauce pan. Add curry powder and cooked beans (drained). Make sure everything is moistened, turn heat to low-medium, cover and cook about 15 minutes, until liquid is absorbed. Be careful not to burn the quinoa, since it cooks quickly.
4. When all the water is absorbed, allow to sit, covered,  a couple of minutes, fluff with a fork, toss with parsley and serve. (I garnished the dish with a radish.)

Yield: About 5 cups
Variations: Feel free to add bell peppers, hot peppers, mushrooms, celery, kale, etc. Also, feel free to use the quinoa pilaf to stuff peppers, squash, eggplant, or zucchini and top with cheese, put in over for 2 minutes & allow the cheese to melt.

A few words about the quinoas that I used. I mixed the light yellow quinoa that is already sprouted from tru-Roots and the multi-colored quinoa from Alter Eco Fair Trade. Now if I could only buy a multi-colored quinoa that is also sprouted, I would be in sprout technicolor heaven!

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