Stuffing for Zucchini or Peppers

We love vegetable based meals, and this one is a family favorite. You can use the stuffing to fill hollowed out zucchini or peppers. Tonight, we're just making the stuffing.

As is common for me, I doubled the batch so that I could freeze half. Freezing meals is something that I learned about a few years ago: it's great for nights that fast food is not an option, and no one wants to cook.

Here we go:

First, prepare your rice. Rice on the stove top is really easy. Take two parts water to one part rice-- translation? Put one cup of rice and two cups of water in a pot. (This is two cups of rice and four cups of water.) Put the lid on the pot. Put the pot on the stove over medium high heat. When the water is at a rolling boil (steam will come shooting out the edges of the lid), remove the pot from the heat. Do not remove the lid until you are ready to use the rice. The steam trapped in the pot will finish cooking your rice. This will take about 20 minutes, which is perfect for this recipe. That gives you time to cut up all your vegetables.

Wash your vegetables. I used about 5 tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, 2 zucchini, 2 little crook neck squash, and a medium yellow onion.

Dice your tomatoes and peppers.

Slice your zucchini in half.

Cut each half into strips.

Cut the strips into skinny strips (about 1/4 inch wide).

Turn the strips, and cut again to dice.

Dice up your crook neck squash using the same method as you used for the zucchini.

Cut up your onion.

Here's where you can go all vegetarian or choose to be meaty. If you're opting for the vegetarian way, drain one can of your favorite beans. Today we chose kidney beans. If you are feeling carnivorous, brown and drain 1 lb. ground beef or turkey. Drain off the fat, and continue to the next step.

Put a little bit of olive oil in a big skillet. Turn the heat on to medium.

Let the oil heat just a little bit, and then add your vegetables.

Salt and pepper to taste. I used garlic salt and lemon pepper.

Add your beans or meat.

Stir and cook the veggies until they start to get tender. If you want to speed up the process a little, add a lid to the senario. When the vegetables are tender, add your rice.

Put the lid back on your skillet, and let the lovely mixture simmer a bit.

Stir every minute or so, in order to make sure nothing's sticking to the bottom of the pan. Nothing ruins a beautiful meal so much as knowing that a horribly messy pan is waiting for you afterwards...

When the watery stuff in the rice mixture looks like it's just about gone, you're done.

It's at this point that you could stuff a hollowed out squash or several cleaned and topped off bell peppers, if you'd like. Just fill them and cover the tops with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. We didn't choose this option today...

it looked to yummy to wait!

Enjoy!