Vegetarian Fare

B has decided to cut out the red meat and chicken for a bit so this has given me the perfect opportunity to experiment with some vegetables.  Plus people at work keep bringing tons of veggies in for me to have.

Jumbo green peppers were on sale at Harris Teeter last week so I decided to attempt some stuffed peppers.  I have only ever made stuffed peppers with ground beef in them so I decided to try something different.  I have been using Pinterest a lot lately and used it as an inspiration for my peppers.  I went for a Mexican theme and they ended up pretty good.

Mexican Style Stuffed Peppers
3 jumbo green peppers (or 4 regular)
1 cup instant brown rice
1 can tomatoes with green chillies
1 can black beans
1 envelope of taco seasoning
pepper jack cheese
salsa-optional

Preheat oven to 400.  Cook rice per directions.  Cut peppers in half and seed them and then microwave them for about 5 minutes.  Then in a sauce pan add rice, tomatoes, black beans and taco seasoning and cook until heated.  Put peppers cut side up in a baking pan and stuff each pepper with rice mixture.  Top each pepper with a slice of pepper jack cheese.  Then cover the whole pan with foil and cook for 15 minutes.  Take the foil off and cook for 5 more minutes.

These came out pretty good.  I would have liked my peppers to be a little softer (maybe microwave them more) but B really enjoyed them.  The next day I microwaved one of the leftover peppers with some salsa and extra cheese.  It was really good.

Yesterday Harris Teeter had lemon artichoke pesto on sale so I decided to make some pasta salad out of that.

Lemon Artichoke Pasta Salad with Veggies

1/2 box of shell pasta

1 medium zucchini

1 medium yellow squash

sun dried tomatoes

Parmesan cheese

lemon artichoke pesto

Cook pasta.  Slice and seed the zucchini and squash and then blanch them for a couple minutes.  Mix pasta, squashes, chopped sun dried tomatoes, some fresh Parmesan cheese and some of the pesto.  I also added in garlic salt, pepper and some red pepper flakes.  My vegetarian sister approved this recipe.

Do you use Pinterest?

What is your favorite vegetarian dish?

Vegan Quinoa Salad

L-Fab decided that I should make some sort of salad with chickpeas in it.  So I went a head and decided to make a vegan recipe this week.  I went with my old standby vegetarian grain, quinoa.  This is similar to a salad I made before but I went ahead and took out the cheese and added some other healthy stuff.

Vegan Quinoa Salad-
1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable broth or water
2 roasted red peppers (I used the jarred kind)
cherry tomatoes (a handful)
1 medium sized cucumber
1 can chickpeas (or less, probably less)
1/2 of a medium sized red onion
4 teaspoon olive oil
4 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 of a lemon
4 teaspoons honey mustard (I used Maille, I love that stuff)
2 teaspoons minced garlic

1-Cook the quinoa according to directions in the broth or water.  (My quinoa said to use 2 parts liquid to 1 part quinoa and to put them both in the pan at the same time and bring up to a boil.  Then turn down to a simmer, cover, and wait for the liquid to evaporate which was about 15 minutes)
2-Chop up all the veggies (ie-quarter or halve the tomatoes, chop the cucumber, red pepper and onion into small pieces) while you are waiting for the quinoa to cook.
3-Mix the olive oil, vinegar, juice from the lemon, honey mustard and garlic to make a dressing.
4-Then mix your quinoa, veggies, chick peas, and dressing together.

I chilled mine for about an hour before serving.  The only change I would make would be less chick peas.  Apparently I do not like chick peas that much.  I mean some are ok but a whole can was too much for me.  As far as the dressing goes, I just mixed the ingredients until I liked how it tastes.  If you don't like it sweet you can use regular mustard or change the ingredients based on your taste preferences.

OK, so this has to be healthy, right?
Do you ever make vegan dishes?
Does cheese really make everything better or is some stuff ok without it?

OMG and who is super excited for the LIVE 30 Rock episode tonight and the return of Jan on The Office?  I am!