stuffed bell peppers – a follow up.

So husband and I are trying to save money while still eating well. Not an easy thing to do. We joined Costco and are having a blast making lots of meal variations with things like avocados, peppers, onions, quinoa, feta, shrimp, chicken, sausage, eggs, beans, chickpeas and some other bulk items we bought. It’s been over two weeks and we haven’t had the same thing twice. So far, our grocery bill seems to have shrunk (except for the initial one) as we are only going back to the store for various perishables every so often.

Our recent venture to eat well/spend less is what led me to this blog post and not having the brain capacity to figure out how to convert carbs in dry brown rice to cooked brown rice. The meal I was cooking, really just throwing together, ACTUALLY turned out well. I’m a recipe follower, so piecing together a nice meal like this is really exciting. So, here’s the recipe (as detailed as I can get..) for my creamy rice/chicken sausage stuffed peppers.

I was cooking for two, and we weren’t very hungry. You can always add a side salad or some fruit if you’re jonesing for more.

Here’s what you need.

1 large bell pepper (I used red, they’re my fave.. they were on sale for a buck)
1/16th of an onion. Husband doesn’t like onion, so you might want more.. or less.
1 dinner sausage (I use this brand of chicken sausage – jalapeno mango flavor. It’s absolutely amazing.)
1/2 cup dry rice, which should equal out to 1.5 cups of cooked rice. Come on, we learned this last blog post!
A dollop of plain greek yogurt (how much is a dollop? you tell me. how creamy do you want your rice?)
tad bit of feta cheese
some random spices. I threw in some thyme and maybe a dash of cumin. possibly some red pepper flakes. we like heat.

And preparation is easy!

Preheat oven to, ehhh… 350.
Start by cooking the rice by following whatever directions you might have. This step probably takes the longest.
Chop up sausage pretty thin. I sort of diced mine so I’d get a little taste in every bite. Warm up in skillet (It’s already full cooked) along with chopped onion and a smaaaalll splash of olive oil.
Cut bell pepper in half long ways. Take out seeds.
Boil a pot of water. Boil the bell pepper halves for about 5 minutes. This makes them softer. When they’re done, put them in a baking dish. I used a loaf pan so that they wouldn’t fall over while baking. I have a misto (it mists olive oil) so I sprayed a thin layer of olive oil in dish, to be safe.
When rice is done, stir in a bit of plain greek yogurt until it’s as creamy as you like – I just used a spoonful. Then add sausage and onion, a couple dashes of spices and feta cheese. Mix together.
Split your rice mixture in half and fill peppers.
Cook in oven for about 20 minutes, or until soft.

Rice might not do well for every person’s blood sugars. I took guesstimated this to be about 40 grams of carbs, and my sugar fared well (about 145 post meal, actually coming down from 225 pre meal). Certainly not low carb, but it was delish.