Stuffed Peppers

Summer's bounty is all around us, from fresh berries, to ripe melons, and beautiful bell peppers. Our CSA box brought us two lovely green bell peppers (you could use red, orange or yellow, too) along with a recipe for stuffed peppers. I had to try it out and it was lovely. I didn't have the mushrooms the recipe called for, so I used zucchini instead and it was a great addition. The best thing about this recipe was that it more stuffing than I needed, so I packed it up in the fridge, brought it out the next day and ate in on a salad. Delightful.

**The below recipe makes enough for 4 peppers - I halved it for mine.

Barley Stuffed Bell Peppers (courtesy of the Full Circle newsletter)
Ingredients:

1 cup barley, cooked
2 tbs olive oil
1 cup onion, diced finely
2 celery stalks, diced finely
2 cups cremini mushrooms, sliced (I subbed finely diced zucchini here)
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/3 fresh parsley, minced
1/3 cup fine breadcrumbs (I used Japanese panko)
1/2 tsp minced herbs (rosemary, thyme, etc.)
4 medium sized bell peppers, tops and seeds removed
Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set cooked barley to the side. In a large saute pan, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and celery and saute until soft, 4-5 minutes. Add mushrooms (or zucchini) and saute until brown and soft, toss in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.



Finely diced veggies sauteing away!!


2. Toss in parsley, herbs and breadcrumbs, and season with salt and pepper.

3. Mix with barley and season again if necessary. If dry, add 1-2 tbs of olive oil. Mix to combine. Fill each pepper with mixture, place on baking pan and put in oven. Bake until tops are browned and pepper is soft (about 15-20 minutes). Remove and serve.






Served mine with some roasted carrots. Yum.