Quinoa Stuffed Peppers and Spring Mix Salad

In my quest for meatless main dishes I checked out some back issues of Vegetarian Times magazines from the library. This recipe caught my eye right away because it's beautiful (I love beautiful food!) and it uses quinoa which I have been hearing a lot about but hadn't tried yet.
Quinoa is actually the seed of a plant. But it acts as a grain in recipes as far as the taste and texture are concerned. And it is very high in protein so it's a great ingredient for vegetarian recipes.

Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers
from Vegetarian Times Magazine

Serves 8
5 points per serving* - not counting the salad dressing of your choice
Approximate cost for this meal: $10
(A good price on the peppers will reduce the cost significantly)

1 medium onion, finely chopped (1 cup)
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 ribs celery, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 Tbs. ground cumin
2 cloves garlic, minced (2 tsp.)
1 10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
2 15-oz. cans diced tomatoes, drained, liquid reserved
1 15-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup quinoa
3 large carrots, grated (11/2 cups)
1 1/2 cups grated reduced-fat pepper Jack cheese, divided
I couldn't find reduced fat so I used regular pepper jack and figured the points based on that.
4 large red bell peppers, halved lengthwise, ribs removed

1. Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and celery, and cook 5 minutes, or until soft. Add cumin and garlic, and sauté 1 minute. Stir in spinach and drained tomatoes. Cook 5 minutes, or until most of liquid has evaporated.

2. Stir in black beans, quinoa, carrots, and 2 cups water. Cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes, or until quinoa is tender. Stir in 1 cup cheese. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Pour liquid from tomatoes in bottom of baking dish.

4. Fill each bell pepper half with heaping 3/4-cup quinoa mixture, and place in baking dish. Cover with foil, and bake 1 hour. Uncover, and sprinkle each pepper with 1 Tbs. remaining cheese. Bake 15 minutes more, or until tops of stuffed peppers are browned. Let stand 5 minutes. Transfer stuffed peppers to serving plates, and drizzle each with pan juices before serving.

I served the stuffed peppers with a spring mix salad with cucumbers and tomatoes added.

*Using the nutrition info from the original recipe the points value comes to 6 points per serving. But when I put the recipe in the builder on the WW website, using regular cheese versus reduced fat, the points value works out to 5 per serving. I don't know why that would be. But either way, it's a very healthy meal for very low points.

What we thought:

Roger and I liked the peppers very much. I really like quinoa. The texture is very similar to brown rice, nutty and a little chewy. But it's a lot faster and easier to cook and has nearly double the protein as well. I plan to occasionally use quinoa in place of brown rice in the future.

Emily and Kenzie said they liked the peppers but didn't really eat much.

Jaxon saw the picture early in the day and said "Mmmmmm...." but didn't eat much of it when it was actually on his plate.