Stuffed Green Pepper with Rosemary Garlic Quinoa

A week of mondo stressing and a weekend of camping and seafood indulgence only has led Alex and I to a vegetable-less diet full of stomach aches.  For god's sake, this is what I ate for dinner last night (delicious, amazing, try it, just throw some spinach on it or eat with fruit).  Feeling creative, I used a recipe I found via Pinterest for inspiration, and the directions from Martha Stewart for cooking quinoa to whip up a healthy and tasty summer dinner.

1 green pepper + a small amount to add to stuffing if you'd like
~1 cup of ground turkey
1 small tomato (diced)
1 medium carrot (shredded)
1-2 TB of minced garlic
1 tsp crushed red pepper (dried)
1 TB dried minced onion
2 TB dried breadcrumbs
1/2 cup cheddar cheese (shredded)
Dried rosemary to taste
Salt to taste


1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F

2. Cut green pepper in half, cut/scoop out seeds and stem, and put in oven face (cut side) down for ~12 minutes (as taken from my inspiration recipe)

3. Dice your green pepper* and shred your carrots.  Combine with  minced garlic (as shown in the above picture, I used pre-minced garlic from BJ's).  Sautee on med-high heat with some olive oil for about 5 minutes.  I sauteed mine in a pan that had leftover bacon grease (see above for my bacon-related dinner last night).  I believe that bacon makes most things taste a million times better, and if I don't have to wash the pan-- hey, why not?


*I had 2 "slices" leftover from a hummus and veggie dip combo I made over the weekend.  You can also double or triple this recipe and add a half of one green pepper to taste

4. Add the diced tomato, red pepper flakes, and dried minced onion, salt to taste, and a few sprigs of rosemary. Lower heat to med, let sautee for a few more minutes.

5. Add in the ground turkey, and mix in with the cooked veggies.  Stir in and mix around for about 5 minutes while the meat cooks through.  Also sprinkle and mix in the breadcrumbs.  I just did this by eye, but 2TB seems realistic.  (the pepper should be out of the oven by the time the turkey is cooked)

6. Add the stuffing to the pepper halves, put back in oven for 10-25 minutes.  ** (I put ours in for only about 7 minutes or so, but really enjoyed the crunchy green peppers, I would recommend a bit more time in the oven than I allowed for, but to keep in mind how soft vs. crunchy you want your peppers to be.)**

7. Add the shredded cheese on top and pop back into the oven for 4-5 minutes.

As for the quinoa? I just followed Martha's cooking instructions, but used about 1 TB of garlic, more rosemary, a bit of olive oil in the cooking process, and put parmesean cheese on top!  Our's, unfortunatley, came out super salty because I added salt.  In retrospect, I shouldn't have because the pan was already seasoned and the cheese has quite a bit of salt content.

Just another, because I'm so darn proud, beautiful, UNEDITED! picture of the meal. *sigh* I'm getting to know my camera :)