Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

This recipe is a keeper. Perfect for a light dinner…even better, you can pack the leftovers for lunch the next day! We absolutely love this dish. Next time we make this we will use fresh baby spinach instead of frozen chopped spinach. For some reason, frozen spinach tastes funny (to us at least). Also, we  had some extra filling…I guess it will depend on the size of your peppers!

Ingredients

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1/2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 5 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (I used 10 oz)
• 1 15oz can diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
• 7 oz canned black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/3 + cup quinoa, rinsed
• 2 medium carrots, grate
• 1 c vegetable broth
• 3/4 c pepper jack cheese, grated, divided
• 2 large red bell peppers, halved lengthwise, ribs and seeds removed

Directions

Saute onion in EVOO until soft. Add cumin and garlic, saute about 1 min. Stir in spinach and drained tomatoes. Cook about 5 minutes or until all the liquid has cooked off. Stir in black beans, quinoa, carrots and vegetable broth.

Cover, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, simmer 20 minutes or until quinoa is tender. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350. Pour reserved liquid from tomatoes into bottom of baking dish. When quinoa mixture is done, stir in 1/2 c cheese. Fill each pepper half with a quarter of the quinoa mixture and place in baking dish.

Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour (I baked for 45 minutes because I became impatient). Uncover, sprinkle each pepper with remaining cheese and bake 15 minutes more, until tops are browned. Let stand 5 minutes, drizzle each with pan juices before serving.