Ellie's Greek-Style Stuffed Peppers

This week's Craving Ellie recipe was Greek-Style Stuffed Peppers. They are full of vitamin C (red bell peppers have twice the amount of C as an orange), fiber, lycopene...and beef and cheese! I used Arizona grass-fed beef from San Rafael Valley Beef, so my peps had lots of omega 3's too. Most importantly though, they were delicious!

I, of course, made a few tweaks to Ellie's original recipe, which you can find online here. Rather than bulgur wheat, I used a 7 grain blend from Seeds of Change, which had Long Grain Brown Rice, Barley, Rye, Bulgur, Red Winter Wheat Berries, Quinoa, and Wild Rice. I didn't have any plain bulgur, plus the more grains the merrier, right? I also browned the beef and onions a bit to cut down on the oven time, used different veggies and cheese, because that's what I had on hand, and made a quick marinara to serve with the little guys, so they were nice and saucy. Oh, and I added garlic of course! Below is a rundown of my version, but this recipe is pretty forgiving for whatever you have in the fridge.


Stuffed Peppers
adapted from The Food You Crave, by Ellie Kreiger

3 red bell peppers
1 lb grass-fed ground beef
1 small white onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small zucchini, coarsely shredded
1/2 a carrot, finely shredded
1 cup cooked grains or brown rice (I used a 7 grain blend)
1 egg
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1 cup marinara sauce

Preheat oven to 375. Cut the peppers in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds, ribs, and cores. Sweat the onions and garlic in olive oil for a couple minutes, then add ground beef for another 5 minutes or until just barely pink. Remove to a plate to let cool. Beat egg, and then add in zucchini, carrot, grains, oregano, salt and pepper, 4 tablespoons marinara, and cooled off beef, and stir to combine. Place peppers in a ovenproof dish, fill with beef mixture, spoon a dollop of tomato sauce on top of each pepper and sprinkle with a little mozzarella. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and cook for another 15 minutes, until tops are browned, gooey and beautiful. Serve with extra marinara on the side.

Thank you to Healthy Hostess for suggesting this recipe, and check out the CEimB blogroll to see how everyone else fared with their peppers this week.

If you'd be interested in cooking a healthy recipe every week with our group, we are actively recruiting! I'm having fun so far trying recipes I probably wouldn't try on my own, and it's great to see all the other blogs and their gorgeous photos. Check us out at http://www.cravingellieinmybelly.blogspot.com/ to see more!