Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Quinoa is one of the ancient grains that people are super into at the moment (along with millet, spelt, etc).  Quinoa, in my humble opinion is the best one, especially for veggie dishes since its protein packed.  I use it in salads, burgers, and pretty much in anyway you can use brown rice.

My mom came across a recipe for quinoa stuffed tomatoes a while back and decided to modify it and use peppers instead.  These stuffed peppers are delicious and are great as left overs to take for lunch the next day.  I prefer having yellow or orange peppers, but any color will do :)

6 large mixed colored bell peppers (tops cut off at 1/2 inch from top - scrape out insides of bell pepper leaving just the shell, drain over paper towels)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2-3 shallots finely chopped
2 large cloves of garlic minced or pressed
1 cup of frozen corn kernels
1 cup of quarter inch sliced asparagus
1/2 cup of fresh tomato sauce (you can use some of the the recipe posted earlier)
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
1/4 cup of chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup of quinoa (cooked in 1 cup of water for 10 minutes simmering)

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat olive oil over medium high heat in a medium sized skillet and sautee the shallots and garlic for a minute.  Add corn and asparagus and cook for another two minutes.  Add the tomato sauce, curry, salt and pepper.  Continue to stir and cook until liquid has almost evaporated.  Stir in quinoa and basil and remove from heat to cool a little bit.

Sprinkle the insides of bell peppers lightly with salt and pepper.  Then stuff bell peppers with quinoa mixture and cover with the tops.

Put stuffed bell peppers on oil coated baking sheet and bake until they soften (about 25 minutes).

If the bell peppers have trouble standing up you can cut them in half and stuff them like boats instead.