Stuffed Peppers ala Controlled-Carb!

A quiet Memorial Day was our plan yesterday - a delicious breakfast of slow-cooked oatmeal, topped with yogurt, sliced almonds and strawberries started the day. It's not often we have oatmeal, but it was among the things I bought to add some variety to our menu throughout the week - and it was a tasty change of pace!

When Gil arrived home from his morning patients, we enjoyed leftovers from dinner the night before and then headed out to get some things done in the yard and then Gil and Hunter went fishing for a couple of hours.

With a number of emails asking to see our lake, I decided to post one so my readers can see why we choose to live where we do now - two words: peace and quiet!
















While they were fishing (it's almost always catch and release relaxation fishing - the night before was an exception to the "gut-hook" consumption of fish from the lake) I got dinner started.

Last night was stuffed peppers and a small salad. I haven't made stuffed peppers in years, mostly because recipes are based heavy on rice as part of the stuffing, but the green peppers were such a good bargain that I bought nine of them, thinking I'd come up with a recipe for stuffed peppers when the time came to make them.
















So, with a little creative license, here is the recipe I created as I went along last night:

Wash 8 green peppers well, the cut tops off and set aside. Remove the stems and seeds and fill each pepper with cold water. Place in a large baking dish, with about an inch of water in the bottom of the dish and microwave for 10-minutes.

Trim tops and place in container/bag in refrigerator for use later in week.

While peppers are steaming in the microwave, saute in butter, one diced zucchini, 1/4 onion diced, and one carrot shaved/diced very small until the zucchini is tender and the onions are still not quite translucent. Remove from pot/pan and set aside in a bowl.

In same pot/pan, add one pound crumbled ground turkey, salt & pepper, and cook, then add one can of diced tomatoes.

By now the peppers are done, so take them out of the microwave and empty each one of the water and drain the pan of water...add 1/2 inch of cold water to the pan and place peppers back in the pan.

Back to your pot of ground turkey and diced tomatoes - now add 3/4 of a jar of picante sauce (thin salsa), 1 can black-eyed peas and your onion-carrot-zucchini mix. Stir all together and spoon mixture into peppers. Take one small can of tomato sauce and pour over the stuffed green peppers, allowing the sauce to also fall into the water in the pan....then, taking a spoon, dollop the remaining picante on top of each pepper. Cover pan with foil and bake in the oven at 350F for about an hour (until the peppers are tender) - remove foil and bake another ten minutes to set the sauce on top.

Serve and enjoy!

Each Pepper:
198-calories
7.5g Fat
2.9g Saturated Fat
22.6g Carbohydrate
4.5g Fiber
18.1g net carb
12.4g Protein