I tried my hand at recipe creation tonight and the when I alerted the hubs to my plan, I was accused of gambling with dinner. “Should we just order the pizza now, Manny?”

Oh ye of little faith.

I decided to make some spicy quinoa stuffed peppers to accompany grilled chicken breasts. RP and I have a little urban garden that has produced some delicious looking hot peppers that are dying to be used, so I think our next couple of meals will be heavy on the heat!

To make the peppers, I halved two bell peppers and removed the innards. I boiled them for about 3 1/2 minutes.

While the bell peppers boiled, I chopped a 1/4 white onion, two jalapenos and one long red spicy mystery pepper and drained a can of diced tomatoes.

I coated a baking dish with a light layer of cooking spray and added the boiled bell peppers.

I sautéed the onions, peppers and drained tomatoes with a minced clove of garlic and a dash of cumin until most of the liquid had evaporated.

When most of the liquid is evaporated, I added 1/2 a can of drained and rinsed black beans, a 1/2 cup of quinoa and 1 cup of water.

I reduced the heat, covered and let simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender. Typically you are supposed to rinse quinoa before use because it can have a bitter taste, but I forgot and didn’t think that this recipe suffered. To be safe, go ahead and give it a rinse.

Lest you think this recipe is too healthy, the next step is to shred a 1 1/4 cup of pepper jack cheese. This is also the appropriate time to light the grill (go light the grill, RP).

When the quinoa mixture is ready, mix in 1 cup of the pepper jack cheese. You are then ready to stuff your peppers. Throw your chicken on the grill (get on that, RP).

Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top and place in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

And you’re ready to eat!

That’s a picture of RP’s plate. I love dinners like this that end up giving me lunch for the next day. A stuffed pepper and a 1/2 chicken breast is a perfect meal for me and I’m excited to have lunch already packed!

I didn’t remove the seeds from the spicy peppers, so this had a nice bit of heat. RP said that this was the best quinoa dish that I’ve made and that it was very good. This is high praise from the cook in our house! He did qualify that by saying that quinoa still looks weird. At least it didn’t taste weird!

Here’s the recipe:

RP Approved Quinoa Stuffed Peppers
Serves 4:

2 bell peppers
1/4 white onion
Jalepenos or other hot peppers if desired
15 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 1/4 cups pepper jack cheese

Halve two bell peppers and remove ribs. Boil in a pot of salted water for 3-5 minutes until they are tender but still crunchy. Remove from water and place in cooking spray coated baking pan.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sautee white onion and hot peppers. Add diced tomatoes, garlic and cumin. Simmer until most moisture is evaporated.

Add black beans, quinoa and 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until quinoa is tender.

Add 1 cup of pepper jack cheese to quinoa. Fill peppers.

Top peppers with remaining 1/4 cup of pepper jack cheese and place in oven for 15 minutes.

This is a delicious way to use spicy peppers from the garden and get your meat and potatoes guy to eat something “weird” like quinoa. A win-win!