Bye-Bye Bounty, week 21: Peppers stuffed with deliciousness

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Amazingly, we’re a bit sick of our favorite fajitas. Crazy, right? I KNOW.

So, this week we tried something different with our abundance of peppers. It was totally delicious: Black Bean, Mushroom and Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers.

They were fantastic AND made from things we had on hand. The thrill of trying something new always seems to be greater when we don’t have to lose the high by running to the store to pick something up. You know?

To review: Last week we received apples, sweet potatoes, lettuce, sweet peppers, hot peppers and grapes from our CSA. All pretty easy things to use right? Right. Salad, salad, sweet potato medallions. BAM.

Meanwhile, our collection of peppers has kind of gotten out of hand (again) lately, mostly because there’s been really good prices on them lately and I just can’t say no. To work through some of them, the hubby and head chef thumbed through one of our favorite cookbooks and found the perfect recipe. Based on the size of our peppers, we’d use eight of them in the recipe and it totally sounded delicious.

We’ve made almost every single recipe in that book, so I’m kind of surprised we hadn’t made them before, but we’ll did and we’ll totally make them again. You should most definitely try them!

We served it alongside a simple salad of romaine, carrots, olives and mushrooms. NOM.

Black Bean, Mushroom and Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers (Recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium-size onion, finely chopped (about 1 cup)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups finely chopped mushrooms

1 tablespoon chile powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon pure maple syrup

Fresh cilantro for garnish

In a saucepan over medium heat, sauté the onions in the olive oil for 3 to 5 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms; sauté about 5 minutes, until the mushrooms have released their moisture. Stir in the chile powder and salt. Add the quinoa and 1 cup of the tomato sauce (reserve the rest) and the water, lower the heat and cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring once.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare the peppers: Boil a pot of water. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds. Boil the peppers for 5 minutes and then drain them.

Combine the beans and maple syrup with the cooked quinoa mixture. Stuff each pepper with filling and stand them upright in a baking dish. Pour the remaining tomato sauce over the peppers and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, garnish with cilantro (we didn’t do this), and serve.

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What’d we get this week? White sweet potatoes, grapes, pears, mixed peppers, mixed greens and basil.