Stuffed Peppers

I remember my mom making stuffed peppers when I was a kid.  I wasn't a huge fan of them back then, but gained an appreciation for them as I got older, and then plain old missed then when I moved away for college.  I think about them from time to time, but don't really go out of my way to make them because it's a heavy dish that's dominated by red meat, where as I usually tend to lean towards veggie heavy dishes with light lean white proteins.  Every now and then I like a good filet done for a dose of red meat and all....but, I digress....  so back to these peppers.  I was at a farmers market in Monterey last week,  Produce Market at Moss Landing , and found some huge locally grown green peppers that were only 4 for $1.  So, why not make some stuffed peppers?  I picked up some ground 97% lean beef at my local asian grocery (a whopping $1.69/lb... I still can't believe the price of stuff at the asian grocers here!) and pretty much had all the herbs and stuff in the garden.

So, for the most part with all of my cooking endeavors, I think of something that I want, and I'll scout out a few recipes and take a little from here and a little from there, and in addition to my own changes/additions, I'll come up with something.  But, I was in a hurry last night so mostly went from this recipe:  Simply Recipes: Dad's Stuffed Bell Peppers .  I did make a few changes-- I browned the meat for a few mins (actually, I did this by accident.  In a hurry I missed the part where you mix in the meat raw with everything else for the filling, but anyway it worked out fine), used probably double the amount of fresh oregano out of my garden (they say with fresh herbs you should use a lot more than dried, like double or something), did 2 giant cloves of garlic instead of 1, I did top with a little italian cheese blend and broil for a few mins at the end, and the biggest change was I used a mixture of organic brown rice and quinoa to make things a little healthier.  For the tomatoes I was able to get my hands on these: Pomi Tomatoes .  These taste AMAZING, are tetra boxed so you don't get that weird canned flavor, and come without any preservatives and stuff.  I am even luckier to be able to find these every now and then at a local close out grocery for 59 cents a box-- a really amazing deal for such a great product.  But, you can use any canned tomatoes you want.  For an extra kick try Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomatoes -- they're yummy! 

So, for a kind of thrown together last minute thing last night, they didn't come out too bad.  I really loved the texture of the brown rice and quinoa combo!