Turkey stuffed peppers

I love the taste of cooked peppers so when I found this recipe I knew I had to make it. I also like the concept of using food as bowls. I will definitely be making this Skinnytaste recipe again. The original recipe can be found here. 

Review: This was a pretty simple meal to make and certainly was healthy. It had great flavor too with the cumin essentially giving the meal a "taco meat" taste. In fact, I had some meat leftover so if I don't use it to have sloppy joe, I might use it for tacos. I love the concept of using the peppers as a bowl because then I can guarantee I'm eating everything and not letting anything go to waste. Plus, I really like the flavor of cooked peppers so by using them as a bowl I can ensure I'm getting that taste in every bite. I unfortunately did not have any onion, though, so I used onion powder but using a real onion would give it an additional flavor profile. I used ground turkey meat like the recipe called for, but if you were to use ground beef it would have a slightly different flavor that would be just as tasty. I also would cook it longer than the 35 minutes the recipe calls for only because the peppers were just a tad bit too crunchy for my liking. I prefer my peppers to be soft, so next time I will probably bake them for 45 minutes. Overall, this was a wonderful meal and I can't wait to make it again.

Recipe:

• 1 lb lean chopped turkey meat
• 1 garlic, minced
• 1/4 onion, minced
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• salt to taste
• 3 large sweet red bell peppers, washed (I also included a green pepper just to give me more meals)
• 1 cup fat free chicken broth
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce (I just used a whole can of tomato sauce)
• 1 1/2 cups cooked rice
• Olive oil spray 
• 1/4 cup reduced fat shredded cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a little olive oil spray in a medium size saute pan and heat on a medium flame. Add onion, garlic and cilantro to the pan. Saute about 2 minutes and add the ground turkey. Season with salt, garlic powder and cumin and brown the meat for several minutes until the meat is completely cooked through (you might have to stir it on occasion). Add 1/4 cup of tomato sauce (or the whole can) and 1/2 cup of chicken broth. Mix well and simmer on low for about 5 minutes. Combine the cooked rice and meat together.

Cut the bell peppers in half lengthwise and remove all the seeds. Place in a baking dish. Spoon the meat mixture into each pepper half and fill it with as much as you can (if you have meat left over you can put it aside for another meal like I did). Place all the stuff pepper halves on the baking dish and pour the remainder of the chicken broth on the bottom of the pan. Cover tight with aluminum foil and bake for about 35 minutes. Top with shredded cheddar cheese and enjoy.