Sunday, June 20, 2010

Quinoa and Buckwheat Stuffed Peppers

Buckwheat and quinoa stuffed peppers
As parents we always try to give the best food to our kids. My son is not that keen on the baby food sold in the supermarkets, nor on the baby food I am cooking especially for him. But he adores to imitate us, to pick up from our plates and to have the same food as us, the grown-ups.
This has urged me to change the family diet a bit so that it would be suitable for a toddler as well, which means restricted use of salt and mostly organic produce. Only good things to do for yourself actually.
Another thing we can do is to improve the quality of food by replacing some usual foods with new ones having a higher nutritional value.
With the link between nutrition and health being established, it is essential to teach our children a reasonable approach to food and to introduce healthy eating habits from the very beginning.
So, instead of the more commonly used rice, let's replace it with the gluten free and highly nutritional buckwheat and quinoa. Besides being gluten-free, quinoa is also a complete vegetable source of proteins and can boost a vegetarian diet.
Both quinoa and buckwheat are rich sources of magnesium and iron.
The good thing is they can be easily found in the grocery stores and are very easy to prepare.

So join me in this healthy stuffed peppers recipe, that you can share with your kids as well.

100 gr quinoa
60 gr buckwheat

300 ml + 120 ml water

1 small onion
2 tbsp olive oil

200 gr feta cheese crumbled
10 sprigs fresh parsley and 10 basil leaves

8-10 peppers (orange bell peppers and Turkish white peppers)
a little bit of salt
olive oil to drizzle
Buckwheat and quinoa stuffed peppers
Method:
Wash the quinoa well, according to the instructions, usually no soaking would be required.
In a pan heat the oil, add the chopped onion and fry for a minute or two. Then add the washed and drained quinoa and cover with the 300 ml water. Add a little bit of salt and cook for 15 minutes. In the meantime wash the buckwheat, add it to the quinoa with the remaining 120 ml water and simmer for more 6 minutes and set aside.

In the meantime wash, cut lengthwise and seed the peppers.
Place in a baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
Fill with the quinoa-buckwheat mixture and bake in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes until the peppers' skin has started to darken.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle with feta crumbles and return to the heat again for more 5-10 minutes.
Sprinkle finely chopped parsley and basil leaves.

2 comments:

Debbie said...

These look great and are definitely full of good nutritional value! Thanks for sharing!

Sneige said...

Thanks for your comment and appreciation Debbie!

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