Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Everybody, Spice Up Your Life! Ok, that was an ode to the Spice Girls... But seriously, this is way to make a crowd pleasing meal- and you can make it as spicy as you want. Next time sweet peppers go on sale try this great recipe and stuff them with anything you like!

So I decided to go spicy Mexican, and added flavours and tastes from the Tex-Mex cupboard. But you could go Morrocan (cinnamon and cumin) or Spanish (safron, charizzo and tomatoes) or Italian (totmato, oregano, basil and mozzarella) or BBQ Cowboy (BBQ sauce, pepperjack cheese)!

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

4 colourful bell peppers

1 lb of ground meat (I chose lean ground beef)

2 cups of cooked grain (I chose basmati rice)

2 tbsp of Tex Mex seasoning

1 small onion chopped

1/2 bell pepper chopped

1/2 cup salsa

Options: Black beans, corn, jalapenos etc...

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Set the oven to 375, cut your 4 peppers in half, length wise, remove seeds and place them in your baking dish.

Cook the equivalent of 2 cups of rice, in the meantime brown your ground beef with some tex mex seasoning, onion and peppers, once it's almost cooked, add in the salsa. At this point, you could add in additional ingredients such as black beans, corn etc. and stir in all together.

In a large bowl, add your cooked rice and the meat mixture, stir to incorporate ingredients.  Place a few spoonfuls of the meat and rice mixture in each pepper. Cover with aluminum foil and cook for about 20 minutes. Remove foil, top each pepper with shredded cheese and cook an additional 5-7 minutes, until cheese is bubbly hot.

Here you have them, a meal in a pepper. It's quite perfect, protein, carb, veggies, dairy with calcium and don't forget the yum factor too! You can serve them with a green salad and freeze the rest for later.