I Love Cooking.

Oh yes, I do! Having been so busy with school, internships, and filling out applications for jobs and post-grad internships I have recently sacrificed my passion for food and cooking. Living on mac & cheese (even though I add veggies and use real cheese) and quesadillas isn’t my favorite. Can you say carb and cheese overload?

So being that my last class of the day was cancelled I decided to get my kitchen dirty – and then clean it afterwards of course. (Thanks OCD.) And boy was it delicious!

I had a ton of red and green peppers. They are always on sale at my local grocery store so I always end up buy a few every time I make a trip. So instead of cutting them up I decided to stuff them!

1. Try and find two (or however many you want to make) green or red peppers that stand on their own (I used green). If you can’t find ones that stand on their own cut the bottom of the pepper just enough to give it a flat bottom without cutting large holes in the bottom. Bake the peppers for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

2. Make a grain.  I made Israeli couscous – I like the texture and flavor more than brown rice.

3. Sauté some veggies - I sautéed onions, a red pepper, the tops of the green peppers, a zucchini, and a large onion. Instead of using oil or butter try using some Pam.

4. Then throw in some sausage. You can leave it in the casing or squeeze it out (I left it in...Lazy?). If you leave it in cut the sausage up into small pieces and add to the veggies. If you squeeze it out, work the sausage with your hands to get into smaller chunks before adding it to the veggies. I used Aidells Spinach & Feta Chicken sausage and Aidells Habanero &Chile Chicken Sausage.

5. After the veggies and sausage are cooked add your rice or couscous. (Make sure you are using a non-stick pan or the couscous will stick to the bottom and then you will have to add oil and scrape it off. Not that this happened to me or anything…)

6. Mix it up. Add some salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, and basil.

7. Overstuff the peppers with the mixture.

8. Put on a pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. You just want the pepper to get soft. (I put the peppers in a small loaf pan but you could just put them on a baking sheet.)

9. With about five minutes left sprinkle some cheese on top. I used freshly grated parmesan but mozzarella would work fine too.

10. Enjoy!

You will DEFINTELY have some mixture left over. But that is my favorite part and makes for easy leftovers!

Oh, and my latest published blog post on the new Aura by Swarovski perfume!