Turkish Inspired Stuffed Peppers

While in Istanbul last week I ate the most incredible foods.
One dish that stood out was a stuffed tomato I had as part of a mixed mezze platter.
The tomato was baked and filled with an aromatic rice, nuts and onions. The best part was the hint of cinnamon.

As I had no tomatoes large enough, I used red peppers I bought from the local market instead. Instead of rice, I felt like couscous, so I used that. I also tossed in some dried apricots as a lot of Turkish dishes have apricots and I think they make everything tastier. Martha would agree.

They turned out like heaven. Simple, easy, tasty heaven.

What You'll Need (four servings):

• Four large red peppers
• Tinfoil
• Baking pan
• 1 cup or 250 g of Couscous
• 1 cup or 250 g of boiling water
• 1 Onion
• 1/2 cup or 125 g of chopped Green onion
• 1/4 cup or 63g of fresh pine nuts
• 1/4 cup or 63 g of dried apricots
• Freshly ground pepper to taste
• 1 Tsp of your best cinnamon, I like this one from The Silk Road Merchants in Calgary

What You'll Do:

• Dice your onion into small cubes, like this
• Dice your dried apricots into small pieces
• Chop your green onion into fine pieces
• In a small, non-stick frying pan, add in your diced onion, just covered in water, and simmer until softened
• Cut the top of each pepper off and empty all the seeds
• Trim down the bottom of each pepper, so they stand straight up in the pan
• Pre-heat your oven to 190C or 350F 
• Line your baking tray in tin foil to help prevent the peppers from sticking
• Boil one cup of water on the stove top
• When boiled, add in your couscous and remove from heat, cover with a lid
• Place your empty peppers into the oven to cook for about ten minutes
• After five minutes of resting, fluff your couscous (as it can get sticky) and add in your cinnamon, a twist of freshly ground pepper, sauteed onion, chopped green onion, chopped apricot and pine nuts
• Stir until thoroughly mixed
• Remove your partially cooked peppers
• Stuff each pepper with enough couscous mixture to fill it to the top
• Bake the peppers for another ten minutes

Enjoy!

These babies go great with chicken or salmon...or on their own. So easy, so tasty.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2 (they are so colourful...just like Martha's language)
Taste: 2 (the hint of cinnamon makes them taste so exotic)
Ease: 2 (if they were any easier, they would be my sister....I kid, of course)