Lately I have been so preoccupied with posting on my Instagram with all sorts of smoothie bowls and nice cream – exploring my food design potential – that I have somewhat neglected posting on here. Moreover, I have been travelling around my beloved North Island home and encountering new adventures. This means that I have plenty of exciting things to start writing about (wahoo!) including this amazing dish that I had for dinner last night, made up as we went along and boy, did it hit the spot!!
I have fully embraced a new vegetarian lifestyle and it has helped me to explore more of what can be done with simple grains and vegetables to create phenomenal dishes that make you forget meat even exists. For example, this dish has the perfect balance of energy boosting carbohydrates in the brown rice filling as well as the vitamin-filled vegetables found throughout the dish. As a result, it is the perfect lunch or light dinner for the family and ideal for any dinner party to show off your kitchen skills. Although it may seem that there is little flavour available from just putting cooked rice inside a pepper and cooking it, it is what is in the rice that provides all of the flavour as well as the sweetness of the peppers and the nuttiness of the rice. Basically, you need to make this dish immediately and see what I am on about.
On this occasion, I also decided to stuff some aubergines alongside the peppers because they were in the fridge and added to the Moroccan theme. Therefore, I have added them into the recipe to allow you to choose. Also, bare in mind that I made this recipe up as I went along so the measurements are not exact, so if you follow it go with your gut and add more or less of what you fancy. It will still taste great!
Ingredients
Serves 4
- 2 peppers
- 2 aubergines (optional in addition to/to replace peppers)
- 3 cups brown rice, cooked
- 10 sundried tomatoes, diced
- 3/4 cup pine nuts, extra for topping
- 2 small red onions, diced
- 8 dates, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- Large handful of basil leaves, chopped
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Preheat oven to 180C.
- Cook the rice until al dente.
- Halve the peppers and aubergines, removing the core and seeds from the peppers.
- Place rice in a large bowl and add in all chopped ingredients. Mix until well combined.
- Sprinkle the cumin over the mixture and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Add rice mixture to the pepper/aubergine halves until full. Sprinkle the top with pine nuts and (for the non-vegans) some feta cheese.
- Cook for approximately 20 minutes in the oven, checking on them periodically.
- Serve with a yoghurt or other preferred creamy dressing and a side salad.
As you can see below, I turned mine into a buddha bowl the next day and it went perfectly with some roasted sweet potato, seasoned with Moroccan seasoning and various fresh salad components for a fresh lunch. Leftovers galore!!!
Little City Window 