Stuffed Pepper (just one)

Hubby hates peppers.  What does that mean, you ask?  It means he's a food wuss.  Just kidding!  It means more stuffed peppers for me!

I've had a lovely yellow pepper sitting in my fridge for a few days now, just begging to be stuffed with rice and tasty goodness.  Tonight, I fulfilled that poor pepper's wish.

In an effort to stay away from sandwiches, I made this sucker for tomorrow's lunch.  I like stuffed peppers even better a day later, when the pepper flavor has had a chance to really jive with the stuffing.

I started this pepper stuffing extravaganza in my favorite sort of way...with some chopped onions and garlic sizzling in a pan with olive oil.

When the onions were soft and yellow, I threw some canned diced tomatoes (not drained) in the pan to join the sizzling stuffing shindig.

After a few minutes, I added some cooked brown rice, a bay leaf, dried basil, dried oregano, a shake of Emeril's Original Essence, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, and some frozen chopped spinach.  Whew!  That seemed like a lot less ingredients as I was adding them.  I doused the whole colorful party in some chicken stock and let it get warm and soak up some of that yummy broth.

While this mixture simmered away, I took the top off of my pepper.

It's doing a little bow to show you how nicely I cut off it's little hat.

In went the rice mixture, sans bay leaf.  I made a little too much stuffing mixture but I'm thinking that will taste great in an individual serving size of soup, maybe for another lunch this week!

I sprinkled a little Parmesan cheese on the top for funsies and got ready to cook this baby.  Now, prepare yourself.  I'm going to admit to what is probably a stuffed pepper sin right now.

I microwave my stuffed peppers.

Eek!  Gasp!  Alert the media!

That's the way my grandmother taught me to do it and that's how I'm doing it for now (I also don't feel like baking one little lonely pepper in the oven or burning it in my toaster oven so I think I'm justified).

Five minutes later, Mr. Bowing Pepper looked ready to eat.

Alas, he will have to wait until tomorrow's lunch to be devoured.  I should note that I usually put meat in my stuffed peppers (ground turkey or shrimp) but I didn't have any handy, most likely due to the fact that I haven't had to cook once yet this week!

I can't wait to find this festive looking feast in my lunch box tomorrow.  I always love having an exciting meal to look forward to in the middle of the day!




**A note from the future....oooooooooh crazy!!  I had this stuffed pepper for lunch today and it was FANTASTIC.  Super moist (all that chicken stock I drowned it in) and great flavors.  I'm totally going to make it this way again!