chicken sausage stuffed peppers

So  please, forgive me. It was 95 degrees in my kitchen last night so the fact that I even made dinner was HUGE!  I managed to take one picture of the final dish ( which was yummy) but I will walk you through how I prepared

Stuffed Peppers

I began with some wonderful green bell peppers that we received in our CSA share from Plato’s Harvest

http://platosharvest.wordpress.com/

I began by halving the peppers, cleaning out the ribs & seeds, & steaming them in the microwaves for about 4 minutes to soften them.

I actually made 2 different fillings. For both I used sweet italian chicken sausage & crumbled & browned it in a dutch oven.
for filling #1 ( my favorite) I had a cup of frozen wheatberries that I defrosted, I mixed 1/2 of the sausage, 1/2 cup of marinara sauce, 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 red onion, chopped & 1 red tomato chopped.

For filling # 2, it was almost the same, switching the wheatberries for brown jasmine rice & the parm for mozzarella cheese

I spread a baking dish with some of the marinara sauce & filled each half of pepper with the filling & placed on top of the sauce. ( I baked all of them in the same pan.)

Sprinkle the tops of the filled peppers with a bit more cheese & a bit of olive oil.

bake in a *gasp* 350 degree oven until the cheese melts, about 10 minutes.

despite that fact that the weather so so dang hot, the peppers really did come out well. Why did I make 2 fillings? Well, I happen to LOVE wheatberries, the chewy crunch just makes me so happy. There was the possibility that the kids may have revolted… and ended up eating PB&J for dinner.

I knew that by mixing in some sauce with the brown rice that they would get whole grains without even knowing 😉

As it turned out, seconds were had by both AND, Ryan even ate the pepper!! mission accomplished!

I’m off to Trader Joe”s.. I need me some edamamee!!

oxox!