As I was driving home I was, as usual, running through the contents of the fridge and pantry in my mind to see what I had on hand to make into a quick dinner. I thought of one of the last things left in the freezer from the summer CSA share, a bag of frozen green pepper halves. I cut them in half, blanched them for 3 minutes, and froze them back in August. so when I got home, here is what I did.
1. Followed the package directions on the ten minute brown rice and made 4 servings.
2. While that was cooking, I took 6 small half peppers out of the freezer, put them in a covered dish and into the microwave on auto defrost - when they came out, I blotted them with a paper towel - they were a little watery because they had been frozen - but they retained their lovely green color.
3. I chopped an onion, diced 2 cloves of garlic, and began to sautee them in about a tsp of olive oil
4. Pulled the leftover chopped canned tomatoes from the Minestrone soup out of the fridge and opened, drained and rinsed a can of black beans
5. grated about a cup or so of low fat cheddar cheese
When the onions were soft and brown, I mixed everything together in the pan with the onions & garlic; rice, tomatoes, beans, cheese, then scooped it into the pepper shells in the covered dish and put it back in the microwave, covered, for 10 minutes on 70% power -
Made a quick salad of Spinach, sliced apple, dried cranberries, and feta cheese -voila - dinner.
