basil feta stuffed peppers with garlic tahini sauce

i am pretty proud of this recipe because instead of modifying this recipe, i created it from scratch. in the past, i have made stuffed peppers with a Mexican flair to it, because what goes better with peppers (and life) than Mexican food?

this recipe was inspired by my financial stress (remember this?) and forcing myself to put something together on what was in our kitchen versus finding a recipe and heading to the grocery store to put it together. thanks to Sam's Club, we had few ingredients, but in bulk....

basil feta stuffed peppers with garlic lemon tahini sauce:.

>> 4 peppers
>> 1 cup of quinoa (red or white), cooked
>> 1/2 cup mushrooms
>> 1/2 cup broccoli
>> 3 tomatoes (i used Roma, but obviously any kind would work), diced
>> 1 lb of ground beef
>> 1 cup feta cheese
>> basil (i used dried, but would prefer fresh)
>> 2 cloves of garlic, minced
>> salt and pepper
>> coconut oil (or olive oil)

preheat oven to 300. in a large pan, heat coconut oil and garlic. once the coconut oil is melted, sauté mushrooms, broccoli and tomatoes. in a separate pan, brown the ground beef. add the cooked quinoa and browned meat to the large pan of vegetables, remove from heat. stir until well mixed. add basil, salt and pepper (how much you prefer) and feta cheese. stir until well mixed. while everything is cooking, you will want to prepare the peppers - cut tops off (not too much, just enough to open it up) and 'gut' them. once the quinoa/meat mixture is cooked, stuff each pepper with the mixture and drizzle the top with olive oil to prevent the quinoa from drying out in the oven. place in a pan that allows the peppers to stand up (i used my infamous Pyrex cake pan). bake at 300 for about 30 minutes.

garlic lemon tahini sauce:.

>> 1 clove of garlic, minced
>> 2 tbsp lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
>> 1/3 cup tahini sauce
>> 1/3 cup water

mix well with a fork and put in the fridge to stiffen - should have a yogurt consistency. drizzle over the peppers once you pull them out of the oven. warning: you may want more than that, so you should probably keep extra on your plate.

                                     

this recipe made plenty - you could either use it to stuff 6+ peppers or save the leftovers for something else. i used the leftovers to mix in with spaghetti squash a few days later.

i promise the recipes that i post are easy - do not let the 'different' ingredients trick you!

give it a try and let me know what you you think!

always striving for more,
dee b.