Stuffed Peppers

Where we grew up, there were the world’s best Italian restaurants.  Seriously.  Scranton, Pennsylvania. Who knew?

And from June till Labor Day, it was church picnic, after church picnic, with all the grandmothers spending days on end in church basements turning out dishes that would make Giada and Lydia and Mario all want to go back to cooking school and learn how to do it right.

So, when we first got married, it was pretty important to have a few Italian recipes under my belt, to save the drive back home every weekend for our fix.

This recipe adapted pretty easily to vegan, swapping out the ground beef with brown rice and adding other veggies.  Using a pressure cooker made it a fast, weeknight go to, as well.

And so I give you….stuffed peppers!

Inhredients;

• 4 large peppers, red, green or combination for stuffing
• 1 cup diced onion
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 1 small green pepper, diced
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tablespoons Italian Seasoning
• 1 cup short grain brown rice
• 1 (5oz.) tube tomato paste
• vegetable broth ( almost 3 cups)
• 1-2 cups packed spinach, chopped fine
• 8 oz. package of button mushrooms, diced
• 6 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. In a pressure cooker that has a sauté (or brown) function,sauté onions, carrots and small peppers about 5 minutes in a small bit of oil.  Add garlic and Italian seasonings and sauté about 1 minute till fragrant. ( see note at end if you don’t have a pressure cooker)
2. Meanwhile, in a large measuring cup, whisk tomato paste and enough broth to equal 3 cups total.
3. Add the rice to the vegetable mixture and sauté a minute or so to coat.  Pour in the tomato/rice mixture and stir well to combine.
4. Change the pressure cooker to the pressure cooker setting and cook on high for 15 minutes.  Let it sit for 10 minutes, then do a quick pressure release.
5. While rice mixture is cooking, wash the peppers and cut off the tops, discarding the “guts”, but saving the tops. Soften the peppers by microwaving them for 5 minute.
6. Prepare the mushrooms and spinach and preheat the oven to 350.
7. when the rice mixture is done, add the mushrooms, spinach, nutritional yeast and salt and pepper and stir to combine.  
8. ‘Dump any water out of the softened peppers and place them in an ovenproof baking dish ( I used a deep dish pie plate). Fill them with the rice mixture, cover with the tops and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove the tops, put vegan cheese on top (if desired) and bake another 10 minutes till cheese is melted.

If you do not have a pressure cooker, you can cook the rice mixture in a pot on the stove, it will just take a bit longer (up to 50 minutes for the rice to cook)

This recipe takes about an hour to make, but the last half hour is baking time, so unattended.

Enjoy!