Quinoa stuffed Baby Capsicums

Hey there!

This is another post about the dinner form last Sunday, which I had already mentioned in my recipe of the Berry Semifreddo as well as the Lentil Stew. This time it will all be about the dish I served as an entrée.

I made some stuffed baby capsicums and served them with a small salad on the side, you could however also use normal sized capsicums and prepare this dish as a main.

 

The best part about this creation has to be the filling, for which I used quinoa as a base ingredient. Yet the components, that made this simple dish to a flavourful explosion, where the diverse ingredients I flavoured the quinoa with. While cooking the quinoa I infused it with lemon by adding its juice and zest, then after it had cooled down slightly dried tomatoes, olives as well as lots of basil were added to the mixture.

 

Well, and then you stuff the capsicum with the lovely filling and you’ve got yourself the most delicious stuffed capsicums. This is dead set one of the easiest recipes I have come up with, yet it is a hundred per cent delicious.

The added lemon enhances the flavour of the quinoa to be lightly tangy while adding the dried tomatoes adds a nice amount of sweetness, not forgetting the basil, which always makes good ingredient to bring flavour to a dish.

 

Moving on, I will better start with the ingredient list and talk you through the steps to cerate this deliciousness.

You will need:

 

• 6 baby capsicums or two normal sized ones
• 100g quinoa
• a few sprigs of basil
• 50g dried tomatoes
• 40g black olives
• 2 lemons(juice and zest)
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
• a few sprigs of rosemary

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2.Cut off the heads of the baby capsicums, arrange them cut side up on a baking sheet

3. Drizzle the capsicums with some olive oil and the juice of one of your lemons

4. Add salt, pepper and your sprigs of rosemary, bake the capsicums in the preheated oven for about 15 min or until they are starting to get soft, they shouldn’t collapse though

5.Meanwhile, cook your quinoa according to package directions, add the lemon juice as well as the zest

6. Let the quinoa cool down, whilst cutting up your olives, basil and dried tomatoes

7. When the quinoa has been cooling for around 15 minutes add the olives, basil and dried tomatoes as well as salt and pepper to taste and mix it well

8. At this stage you should have taken your capsicums out of the oven and they will have cooled down a little so you can continue with stuffing them with the mixture

9.Stuff the capsicums with your quinoa mixture, then bake for another 10 minutes, so you will end up with really soft and sweet capsicums

Voila, delicious stuffed capsicums! I actually let them cool completely after taking them out of the oven and served them cold, you could however eat them straight after and enjoy them as a hot meal. As I mentioned previously, I served this divine creation as an entrée. If however you were wanting to eat them as a main I would recommend you to double the ingredients for the filling and to use four regular sized capsicums to end up with a perfect meal for four people. Whether you are serving my creation as an entrée or a main meal, I suggest to eat it accompanied by a rocket salad, since I find the peppery flavour complements perfectly with the slightly sweet and tangy filling.

So that’s it, go off, get some capsicums and quinoa and start cooking!

 

Bisous

Fanny, the foodie