Stuffed bell peppers

[sfllaw]

This is a fun recipe to make for people. Typically, stuffed bell peppers are made with meat, but that's actually not as good as the vegetarian version. This recipe is something that is filling without being heavy. And it has a fairly good balance of flavours.

You'll want to find the biggest, most stable, bell peppers you can. The idea is to have them stand on end, not lie flat on their sides. It makes for fun packages to open and eat. I suppose you could also use yellow, orange, or green peppers; red seems to come out the nicest, though.

This recipe is not particularly spicy, but you could change that by jacking up the amount of cayenne pepper. Also, adding lime juice and black olives would make it more interesting, I should think.
Stuffed bell peppers
Ingredients

• 250mL jasmine rice
• 5 large red bell peppers
• 15 white button mushrooms
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 shallots, minced
• 3 carrots, diced finely
• 125mL pine nuts, toasted
• 10 chives, chopped coarsely
• 15mL tomato paste
• bread crumbs
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1mL cayenne pepper
• 5mL salt
• 5mL black pepper

Directions

1. Cook your cup of rice, according to package directions. After it's done, set it off the heat and let it cool completely. You want the grains to firm up.
2. Set aside one bell pepper. As for the other four, make sure that they are large and stand up by themselves. Take the tops off with the stem intact. Pull out the seeds and scrape out the membrane with a spoon. Wash both tops and bottoms in cold water.
3. Steam the peppers for ten minutes and remove from the heat. You'll probably have to drain the water that's collected inside them.
4. Take that extra red pepper and dice it finely. Now is also a good time to mince, mince, dice, toast, and chop the garlic, shallots, carrots, nuts, and chives. Respectively.
5. Get a big skillet or wok, and put it on medium-high heat. When the pan is good and hot, add a good tablespoon of oil. Throw in the shallots, garlic, and carrots. Fry until they start getting aromatic.
6. Once that has happened, add the diced red pepper and mushrooms. Keep everything moving in the pan. You should see the mushrooms start to brown and weep. This is fine, as water is cooking out of them. Once the mushrooms look like they won't shrink any more, turn down the heat to medium.
7. Add the tomato paste, mixing it in with what juice is left in the pan. Then add the cold, cooked rice; which should be about 400mL or so. Mix the whole thing around until the rice is evenly covered and everything is hot.
8. Mix in the chives and remove from the heat.
9. Taste for seasoning now. You'll want to add the cayenne, for a little bit of kick. Salt and pepper would be good too.
10. Now, stand each pepper bottom on end and spoon the rice mixture into them. You can pack it in a bit, but don't stuff it in or the pepper might break.
11. Top each pepper with some breadcrumbs and sprinkle the top with olive oil. Then, arrange each bottom on a baking sheet and put them under the broiler until the crumb topping is golden brown.
12. Just before serving, cap each pepper bottom with its corresponding top, as a lid. This forms a nice garnish, as the whole pepper gets to arrive at the table.

Serves 4 people.