Little Sister Stuffed Peppers

My little sister is pretty cool.  She is also not so little anymore.  For so long, I took for granted the fact that she looked up to me.  I was the cool one.  I introduced her to stuff. I helped her.  Now, the tables have unfortunately turned.  I’m constantly asking her what things mean / where she got something / what app is that?  Maybe it should make me feel old, but it’s actually so special to me that now we lean on each other.  We were always sisters, but as she’s gotten older we’ve become great friends.  And friends rely on each other for things.  One of the things she looks to me for is cooking advice.  When my mom was visiting me a few weeks ago, the three of us were chatting on FaceTime and we had so much fun walking her through cooking a new dish for the first time.  

Ever since I started Kaleigh’s Kitchen, I’m always on the lookout for ideas.  Right in the beginning, she said, “make some good recipes for stuffed peppers!”  I promised I would.  And then didn’t.  So now I have.  She shares my love for Mexican flavours, so for the first batch I decided to go with a sure winner.  I’m planning on branching out to more adventuresome flavours as we go, but I owed this to her!

Shannon teaching me how to be cool.

This recipe has a few steps but really doesn’t take that long.  Also, like most of my recipes, it makes a lot and gets better by the day.  It makes 8 servings (2 x stuffed pepper half per serving).

This one’s for you Shan  

xo

Kaleigh

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

• EVOO, for browning turkey & sautéing spinach
• 2 packs turkey
• 1 kg / lb? spinach
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 costco punnet cherry tomatoes
• 3 cups cooked quinoa (approx 1.5 cups uncooked)
• 1 large can black beans, drained
• 1 jar Mexican salsa 
• 2 Tbsp cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder
• salt to taste
• 8 peppers

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400C.
2. Put all the cherry tomatoes on a foil-lined tray (no seasoning / oil needed) and roast for 25 minutes. 
3. Brown the turkey on medium high heat, and then put into a large mixing bowl.
4. Roughly chop the spinach, and then sauté on high heat with garlic in EVOO until all of the liquid is gone.
5. Mix all of the ingredients except the peppers in the mixing bowl to create the filling.
6. Halve and stem the red peppers.
7. Pre-roast, cut side up, on foil-lined tray in oven for 15 minutes.
8. Remove peppers from oven, fill each half with filling, and put back in oven for additional 20 minutes.
9. Enjoy with sliced avocado, and salsa to taste.