This pepper isn’t spicy but it sure brings unique flavors to your palette.

Stuffed peppers are no stranger in traditional cooking, but it usually assumes the role as the filling. Using pasta in a pepper is harder to come by, but it’s a fantastic way to deconstruct flavors and keep serving sizes equal. Rounded with an international touch, this dish just might be my new favorite dinner. Using a whole-wheat pasta, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes, I put together a hearty vegan stuffed pepper with some Asian inspiration.

Yellow bell peppers carry some serious street credibility. They are a great source of carotenoids, vitamin C, and vitamin E and contain more than twice the amount of vitamin C that is found in the same serving size of orange. The sweet pepper also has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory benefits, protects vision, wards off arthritis, reduces cardiovascular disease, colon cancer and lung cancer, and is used in traditional Chinese medicine as a natural treatment for blood circulation, indigestion, loss of appetite, swelling, frostbite, nausea, vomiting, phlegm and toxicities.

There’s no need for cheese or meat in this dish, because the flavors are bold and the satisfaction level is high. By cooking the peppers before stuffing, there is more continuity in texture, making for an overall warm and comforting meal. Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 4 large bell peppers
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large white onion
• 2 cups chopped Crimini mushrooms
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon nama shoyu (soy sauce)
• 2 cups cooked pasta
• 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup spinach leaves
• 1 tablespoon capers

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare 2 cups of cooked pasta according to package instructions. All pasta types work well!

Slice off the lid of the peppers, making sure to keep the stem intact. Remove the flesh and seeds. Place them in a baking dish. If the peppers won’t stand up on their own, trim the bottoms so they are flat, without making a hole. Place the caps slightly off center so the insides cook as well. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until the peppers have softened and the edges have browned.

While the peppers are cooking, prepare the stuffing. In a large saucepan, cook the mushrooms and chopped Crimini mushrooms in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Season with pepper. After a few minutes, add the soy sauce and mix.

When the mushrooms have browned and the onions are translucent, add the halved cherry tomatoes, capers and spinach.

Fold the mushroom mixture into the cooked pasta, which has been drained and rinsed.

Remove the peppers from the oven and stuff each one with an even amount of pasta.

Serve with the cap for presentation’s sake. There’s no proper way to eat it – pick it up and chomp or use a fork and knife. Regardless, with each bite try to get a piece of that pepper!

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Photo Credit: Aylin Erman

The post Recipe: Stuffed Peppers (Rice Need Not Apply) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Slice the calories, fat, and sodium with a cauliflower-based alternative

Pizza very well may be the world’s favorite food, but it can really bust your diet. The more mainstream it has become, the further it has diverged from the use of authentic, high-quality ingredients as well as the larger the serving sizes have become – the bread is thicker, the number of toppings defy the point of the dish, and the amount of cheese is greater.

But one thing that has never changed is its difficulty to digest. The pairing of protein and starch, from the cheese and bread respectively, is a classic train-wreck in the stomach. Protein requires an acidic environment for stomach enzymes to digest it and the addition of starch weakens the mix, making it exhausting for your body to process a slice. This is why you may experience extra bloat on pizza night and feel tired quickly. Not to say you shouldn’t enjoy the traditional combination when you crave it, but whenever you’re looking to tighten those abs or avoid the sluggish feeling, keep this knowledge in mind!

This is even before we get to pizza’s nutritional stats. Using Pizza Hut as an example, in a 12-inch medium size pizza, one slice bears 240 calories, 10 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 530 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, and only 1 milligram of dietary fiber. And, let’s get real, who ever stops at just one slice? Double, triple, or quadruple those numbers and you’ll realize just how much saturated fat, sodium, and empty carbohydrates you are consuming in just one sitting. Regular consumption of pizza can lead to raised blood pressure, weight gain, an increase in blood-sugar levels, and cardiovascular diseases.

To avoid the hard-to-digest starch and protein combination and reduce the sodium, fat, and empty carbohydrate levels, I created a recipe that uses cauliflower as the base. Cauliflower has a natural cheesy aroma when cooked, so you can omit cheese altogether without missing out of the flavor. Full-fat yogurt holds together the cauliflower crust, and the “icing” on these mini pizza cupcakes is made up of a simple cooked cherry tomato sauce. Enjoy!

Mini Cauliflower Pizzas

Makes 12 servings

Ingredients:

For the Crust

• 1 head cauliflower, grated in food processor
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup full-fat yogurt
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

For the Marinara

• 1 cup cherry tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• Dash of salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

For the crust, pulse the florets of one head of cauliflower in the food processor until rice like. Cook in a saucepan over medium heat with 1/2 cup water. Cover saucepan with a lid and let steam for 5 minutes, mixing every minute or so to make sure the cauliflower does not brown. This step softens the cauliflower. Once softened, remove from heat and let cool in a large bowl before adding the wet ingredients.

In a separate bowl, whisk the yogurt, egg whites, basil, oregano, salt and garlic powder together. Pour the wet mixture into the cooled cauliflower mixture. Fold until thoroughly combined.

Scoop the cauliflower crust mixture into muffin cups that have been greased with coconut oil. Pack them in firmly until they reach the top of the tin. Flatten the top. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the tops have browned lightly and the edges begin to pull away from the tin.

While the pizzas bake, prepare the cherry tomato marinara sauce. Stem and slice in half 1 cup of tomatoes. In a saucepan over medium heat, sauté the tomatoes in 1 teaspoon of coconut oil with 1 diced garlic glove, 1 teaspoon oregano, and a dash of salt and pepper. Cook until the tomatoes have broken down.

One cooled, line the edges of the cauliflower crusts with a knife and remove each carefully.

Top each cauliflower crust pizza with a spoonful of the cherry tomato marina.

Photo Credit: Kohtzy, GlowKitchen

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Nutritional Breakdown: Pizza’s Healthier Half Takes Center Stage appeared first on EcoSalon.