Vegetarian or Vegan Stuffed Peppers

I get a lot of requests for Meatless Monday recipes so this is one of my favorites that I love to share!  The meal pictured here is vegetarian because I included Parmesan cheese, but you could absolutely make it vegan by omitting the cheese, or make it with beef should you want to eat meat.  Any way you choose, this recipe is great to clear the fridge and pantry of leftover items! Below is a loose recipe I created hastily during a weeknight. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:

Bell Peppers, seeded and sliced in half through the center (it's easier to stuff them this way)

Rice, or rice and beans combo, cooked

1 medium red onion or white onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 bag of frozen spinach, thaw it by putting in colander and running warm water over it-then squeeze out water after thawed with your hands

1/4 to 1/2 cup of canned pureed tomatoes 

Parmesan cheese

salt/pepper

cumin

paprika

ground mustard

chili powder

Method:

Cook your rice according to the package.  You could use this...

...which is what I used. This way you get the complete protein combo (not that you need it, but still) of the rice and the beans in addition to the seasonings.  If you are limiting your sodium, you could use just plain basmati rice and the seasonings I listed above.  Either way, cook this first. 

While the rice is cooking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then, slice the peppers in half through the stem and take out the seeds.  After the peppers are emptied, put them in a large casserole dish and fill the dish with a little bit of veggie stock or carrot juice or tomato juice or anything that can impart flavor into the peppers.  Cover the dish with foil and pop the peppers into the oven for about 20 minutes.  This will make them softer and easier to fill. 

If the rice finishes before you've gotten the veggies cooked and ready just set it aside until you need it!  Same goes for the peppers.  Next, pour a little canola oil in a pan (or you can skip it if you want to avoid oil) and add the onions and carrots.  Saute them for about 5 minutes on medium high heat until they are softened a bit.    (Add beef here and cook until browned if you are making with meat.)  Then, add any seasonings you want, the spinach and the tomato puree.  Stir well and cook for a minute or two.  Then add rice and mix well.  The mixture should be the consistency you'd want it to be inside the peppers! If not, add wine or more tomato puree until it is.  Then add Parmesan cheese to taste.

Once you've pulled the empty peppers out of the oven it's time to stuff them.  Take your finished rice mixture and stuff it in there.  Then sprinkle a little more cheese on top (optional).  Throw the peppers back in the oven uncovered for about 30 mins, then serve! 

This is a great make-ahead meal as you could complete all the steps except the final one, ahead of time! Hope you enjoy :).

Pancake Perfection!

Again, I'm featuring a breakfast food because, well, it's my favorite meal of the day AND I also wanted to show you that there are tons of different ways to eat a healthy breakfast.  Today I'm talking about pancakes.  I typically hate pancakes.  The pancakes I remember eating at restaurants as a kid were doughy, sugary, artificial tasting and covered in syrup that also tasted artificial.  Sound familiar to anyone?  Not tasty and CERTAINLY not healthy.  

In this post I offer you a quick, inexpensive and healthy alternative to the infamous pancake.  First, the dough.  I'm posting two pics of the pancake mix I used, one of the package and one of the ingredients.  We'll go over both.

I like Nature's Path Multigrain because they do the best they can at using the best ingredients.  It is not only ORGANIC but also NON-GMO certified, which these days is very important.

So the ingredients...Overall, I'd rate them about a B on the A to F scale.  I love that they use whole wheat flour but am not too thrilled about the cane juice, whey powder or monocalcium phosphate (which is added calcium and phosphorus for leavening).  The sodium bicarbonate is just baking soda. So besides making the batter yourself-with whole wheat flour, this is the next best option in my book!

So the instructions are simple: 

Again, I stole this picture because my son ate the pancakes I made before I could snap a pic. I'll do better next time! Thanks cheekykitchen.com!

Ingredients

Pancake mix
Canola oil
Ripe banana
Slivered almonds (raw, unsalted)
Carob chips (or chocolate chips if you want, I just went with a vegan option)
Shredded coconut (unsweetened)
Vanilla extract

Options: any other random fruits or items you like to eat. peanut butter might be good in there as well!

Directions:

Follow instructions to make the basic batter. I believe it's 1/2 cup of dry mix to 1 3/4 cup of cold water plus 2 tbsp canola oil-but I may be wrong so just check.  It's super easy and I usually double it for my batches.

To the bowl with the batter, add all the rest of the stuff.  Stir it until mixed well and banana is all mushed up in there.

Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray or use butter or whatever you like to grease it up.  Use a spoon to dollup the mix in there and DON'T TOUCH THEM until the sides are bubbley.  Then it's ok to flip.  The other side cooks quick so have a plate ready.  I would regrease pan before next batch.

Once they're done I just serve them up as is. No frills, no anything needed.  Fresh berries would be a great side or maybe some added coconut, but really they can stand alone.  That is why I love them!