Southwest Stuffed Peppers - and Sorry AND UPDATE

So, first and foremost, apologies to those (few) of you who followed my blog, for my long absence. This past year has been a year of great change for me and I am happy to say that I am doing well, and raring to go. Many many things have changed, my job, my living arrangement, my marital status, my hobbies, my outlook on life, but they are all for the better!!

That said, I thought I would pass along a good recipe I concocted the other night as an on-the-fly healthy dinner option. (Oh yeah, from now on as well, unless otherwise noted, recipes on here will be mostly healthy type things)

Traditional stuffed peppers have always kind of turned me off. Boring combination of ground beef, tomato sauce, and rice. Plus the weird fact that I don't like green bell peppers (yes I know), which is what is traditionally used for this dish.  So on to my revision of said boring old recipe...

Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers

1 lb ground turkey (I'm sure you could use beef too, just drain off the fat)
1 packet dry fajita seasoning like Lawrys (or 2 Tbsp if you make your own)
1 can of black beans, rinsed
1 cup of corn (I used frozen, but canned is fine)
3 cups prepared white or brown rice.
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 small red onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tomato, chopped
1/2 cup each salsa and shredded cheese
4-6 bell peppers with tops cut off and seeds removed (I like red, yellow, and orange peppers
Sour cream & hot sauce to top (optional)

So this is my favorite kind of put-it-all-in-a-pan recipe because hey, less dishes!
Preheat oven to 375
Brown the turkey with onions and garlic in the pan.
Add seasoning and mix well, you may have to add a little water if the meat is dry. When the meat is fully cooked, add beans, corn, tomato sauce, tomato, cooked rice, and salsa, stir well and heat through, the rice should soak up the juices.
Place peppers in a baking dish and fill with mixture until overflowing. cover with foil and bake 35 min.
Remove foil, top with cheese, and bake another 10 min. Peppers are done when fork-tender. Top with some low fat sour cream, more salsa, or hot sauce and enjoy!

Great as leftovers too. Nom nom the next day...

UPDATE:

Tried this last night with a few alterations:
1 lb ground bison (delicious)
1 can of chopped tomatoes (i had tomatoes and garlic, perfect)
2 heaping Tbsp of red salsa (i had Pace medium in the fridge)
a big fistful of chopped flat leaf parsley
topped with Chihuahua cheese

It was FANTASTIC. Bison is packed with flavor and on the lean side so there was no excess fat to drain off.  Fair warning with this recipe, that I should have made mention before: This makes a TON of filling. I filled 6 peppers and still had enough to fill like 5 or 6 more.
There are two ways to deal with this, ok, maybe three...
1.) make 12 stuffed peppers, great if you're feeding a crowd.
2.) save the extra filling and make burritos the next day
3.) do what I did and freeze the extra filling for the NEXT time you want to make stuffed peppers!!!