Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Recently we have begun to discover the wonders of quinoa, and have enjoyed making all sorts of simple, savory dishes with this super-healthy grain.  Any dish made with quinoa is bound to be hearty and filling; a deceptively small amount will keep your appetite sated and your tastebuds happy.

So when the missus discovered a recipe on one of our favorite blogs, Cooking With Amy, we figured we like quinoa, we like peppers, and we definitely like mushrooms, so why not give this a shot?  The great thing about this dish is how easy it is to make; very little preparation in needed beyond chopping a few veggies and rinsing the quinoa.

For those uninitiated into the realm of quinoa, first thing to note is that it has to be rinsed, thoroughly.  Second, quinoa absorbs an astounding amount of water, so figure on your water to grain ratio being somewhere around 2:1.  As part of an entree for 2 people, 1/2 cup of quinoa is just about right to make your tummy full and happy.  However, there is nothing wrong with making more and having some left over for lunch the next day.

But lets move on to the recipe at hand, shall we?

Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Ingredients:

2 Poblano peppers, cut in half, seeds removed

1 cup of water

1/2 cup of red or white quinoa

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

2 cups swiss chard leaves, shredded

1/4 cup pistachios, chopped

1 1/2 cups canned crushed tomatoes, liquid included

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Combine water and quinoa in a saucepan, bring to a boil then reduce heat to low.  Cover; cook for 15 to 18 minutes until water is completely absorbed.  Remove from heat.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, add your olive oil.  Saute onions, mushroom, and garlic for about 8 minutes, until onion is tender.  Add the chard and allow to wilt, it will reduce in volume by more than half.  Add the cooked quinoa and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Once combined, spoon the mixture into the pepper halves.

In a casserole dish large enough to hold the peppers, (an 8 x 8 should do) pour in the canned tomatoes and liquid.  Nestle the peppers into the sauce and top each with a few pinches of chopped pistachio.  Bake for about 30 minutes, until the peppers are tender.

This is a hearty, warm, and simple dish great for a weeknight.  We ate it as our main course, but the peppers could easily be served as a side dish as well.  The one change I would make next time around would be to roast the peppers first and remove the skin; once they had baked the skin was tough and a little bitter, roasting them first would have brought out the sweetness of the peppers.  We used fairly small peppers, which made stuffing a little bit difficult; if you can, find fat peppers that will give you plenty of room to stuff all the goodies inside.

Thanks to fellow San Francisco foodie Amy Sherman for the great recipe.  I hope you all will give this a try and don't be afraid to add your own spin on it.  That's what cooking is all about.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers with Crazy Rooster Sauce

This should be a relatively simple post to write, yet I have been sitting on it for a week now, with dozens of other writerly things running through my head that have nothing to do with stuffed peppers. So, in our last CSA box from Eatwell Farm, we got a few beautiful, dark green Poblano peppers and some small sweet onions. We decided to throw together some roasted, stuffed peppers for dinner, which was complicated by the fact that our stove is electric. But not too complicated.

We roasted the peppers under the broiler for a few minutes, making sure to turn them often as the skin darkened and began to bubble up. Once each side was thoroughly roasted, I tossed them into a large paper grocery bag to cool and allow the skins to seperate. The skins came off easily after that, and the peppers were ready for stuffing. The stuffing recipe we put together is pretty basic, and ended up being enough for about a dozen or more peppers. If you want to keep it vegetarian, sub the ground turkey with potatoes or tofu, or mushrooms. Here's what you do:

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Suffing:

1 lb lean ground turkey

1 can drained black beans

2 - 3 small yellow onions, chopped

2 - 3 cloves of garlic, diced

1/3 bag of frozen corn, or more if you really like corn

1 Tbs. of fresh cilantro, chopped small

1 - 2 tsp chili powder

1 - 2 tsp cumin

1 - 2 tsp sweet paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

Topping:

Crumbly Cotija cheese

Spicy Sriracha "crazy rooster" hot sauce

In a medium skillet, cook the ground turkey until it is browned and cooked through. While the turkey is cooking, add your spices to taste, (more of this, less of the other). Drain off any excess fat, and spoon the turkey into a large bowl to cool.

While the turkey is cooling, put the frozen corn in a medium bowl and defrost for a minute or two in the microwave. It doesn't need to be cooked, just not frozen. Once the corn is defrosted, add it to the turkey, along with the black beans, onion and garlic. Stir until it is all well combined. If you want to make the stuffing spicy, add a few squirts of the Sriracha hot sauce to the mix, but not too much. You don't want it to overpower the other flavors.

Once the peppers have cooled and the skins have been removed, gingerly slice the tops off and remove as much of the seeds and veins as you can without breaking the pepper. With a small spoon, gently slide the stuffing into the peppers until they are full and can't take any more. Using a grill rack set inside a cookie sheet, line the peppers up across the grill. (Or, you know, just grill them.) Place the peppers in a 375 degree oven for 5 minutes or so, just until everything is nice and piping hot.

Serve the peppers topped with the Sriracha sauce and some crumbly mexican cheese. A good side would be some mexican-style rice or warm black beans topped with more cheese. Pretty simple and easy, but be sure you have enough peppers to use up the stuffing mix. Enjoy!