Quinoa Stuffed Bell-peppers

I am a moderately healthy person. I exercise daily, make mostly nutritious decisions, drink enough water, and stay a healthy weight. But I am in no means a health nut. I enjoy my afternoon diet soda and eat way too much candy.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the psychology of eating, and how the eating habits we develop in childhood really impact the rest of our lives. Jonathan and I grew up in the deep south (aka highest obesity rates in the country), and worse, he grew up in a house with 4 boys and 1 man. Meat with a side of starch are the cornerstones of all of his favorite childhood meals.

My problem was that I was always underweight and a super picky eater therefore my parents were always encouraging me to eat high calorie foods, especially carbs since I was an avid athlete. They praised me when I asked for second helpings and let me eat essentially whatever I wanted. This mainly consisted of mac and cheese, cheese pizza, spaghettios, and fish sticks. When I went to college, my palate diversified and my appetite surged. Unfortunately this change incidentally coincided with the end of my soccer career.
I didn’t quite put on the “freshman fifteen” but I had to learn to adapt. My solution was running. I figured if I ran 7 miles a day, I wouldn’t have to change my eating habits. That was true, until recently. I still exercise every day, but with a full time job and weird hours, sometimes I just don’t have the time or energy for a good workout. It’s much easier and time efficient to cut some calories rather than add some cardio.
I’ll never be a vegetarian, much less a vegan, but I do strive to cut meat out as the focal point to every meal and to go meatless a few days a week. It’s harder than it seems to get away from a habit so ingrained, especially when every recipe in your repertoire includes a huge serving of meat. Even my vegetable soup has 2 lbs of stew meat in the recipe.
Recently, my sister (who is an actual health nut) introduced me to quinoa.
Quinoa is a grain-like seed similar to couscous. It’s an excellent source of protein and fiber, and a tasty meat substitute. Last weekend I made quinoa stuffed peppers and it was so deliciously guilt free and filling! Quinoa is also very versatile. I’ve found recipes for quinoa oatmeal , quinoa salads, and quinoa burgers. I try to eat protein but as a runner, I never feel like it fills me up and I’m always craving carbs instead. Quinoa is different and super filling. One stuffed bell-pepper for dinner (which is only about 250 calories) keeps me full until bedtime which allows me to skip my usually pre-bedtime snack (see, totally unhealthy habits!) Here is the recipe I used adapted from this blog , though you can definitely customize the ingredients to your tastes. For instance, my sister adds pesto sauce instead of cheese to the top of her bell-peppers, probably because she’s a total health nut.
Quinoa Stuffed Bell-peppers

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped,
2TB of olive oil
½ cup of chopped celery
1 ½ cups of shredded carrots (about 3 carrots will do it; unless your husband does the grocery shopping, and then it takes about 20 baby carrots)
1 TB ground cumin
2 tsp minced garlic
1 10 oz package of frozen spinach thawed and squeezed dry
1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes- drain, but reserve liquid separately
1 15 oz can of black beans, drained
1 ½ cups of shredded pepper jack cheese
¾ cups Quinoa
4 bell peppers- I like to get one of each color

Directions:
1. Start off my sautéing onions and celery in oil for about 5 minutes. Add in cumin and garlic and heat for one minute before adding drained tomatoes and spinach. Cook this mixture for 5 minutes until all the liquid has drained.
2. Stir in carrots, black beans, and uncooked quinoa. Add 2 cups of water to mixture, cover and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes, or until quinoa is tender. At this point, mix in 1 cup of pepper jack cheese.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut your bell-peppers in half from top-to-bottom (lengthways) and de-seed and de-rib them. Pour your tomato juice in the bottom of a large baking pan (I used my lasagna pan). Stuff bell-peppers with quinoa and veggie mixture. Cover baking pan with foil and cook for one hour.
4. Top each bell-pepper with a sprinkle of cheese and cook for 15 more minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before eating. Trust me on this one.

Total prep + cook time is about 2 hours for this. However, the long baking time allows for kitchen clean up in the meantime. And this recipe makes about 8-10 servings and it’s really good for freezing. I’d recommend even doubling the recipe and freezing ¾ of it. Once you have the mixture, its super easy to just buy some bell-peppers, thaw out a few servings and pop it in the oven for an hour and 15 minutes. Voila, healthy vegetarian dinner.

And if you’ve been living under the same health –food ignoramus rock that I have, here is some additional information on cooking quinoa.
(Breakfast Quinoa)

Running= Cure for Introversion

Million Dollar (ok, maybe more like 3 million-dollar) view of the island of Molokai from the lanai of our rental house:

My favorite thing about Maui was jogging while I was there. The mornings were usually a dewy 65 degrees, the sunrise views were unspeakably beautiful, and the steep hills kept my heart rate at about 160 the entire time (which allowed for guilt free participation in my second, third, and fourth favorite things about Maui- Hawaiian Pizza, Shaved Ice, and chocolate covered macadamia nuts).

The house we (ok, my parents) rented was on the grounds of the Ritz Carlton of Kapalua, so the rocky beaches, wide pedestrian sidewalks and manicured gardens of the resort were my running trail for the week we were there. Though in retrospect, our Hawaii trip seems pretty flawless, a house full of family (including two rambunctious nephews) + substantial jetlag at the time had the potential to make for a pretty grumpy Laine. My morning runs completely absolved me of any moodiness I was feeling beforehand.

I think my family would agree that my two crankiest days were the ones where we piled into a car at sunrise and didn’t make it home until sundown- leaving no endorphin inducing exercise for me. You see, I’m one of those people who loves to run to the point where it’s fair to label it an addiction. Combine running with travelling and I couldn’t be happier.

As a textbook introvert, jogging gives me that time I require for reflection and introspection to “work out my stuff”. In Hawaii, it allowed me to distance myself from whatever insignificant thing that was irritating me and refocus on the fact that I was in freaking Hawaii with my fabulous family and nothing, not even a snorkeling-induced panic attack was going to bring me down. As an introvert, being surrounded by socialization and stimulation all day long can be exhausting. While my extroverted friends and family feel energized by social interaction, I’m actually depleted by it.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t love to socialize, because I absolutely do. Quality time is even my number one love language. It’s just that I have to re-energize afterwards by spending time alone with my thoughts to “work out my stuff”. Running on family vacations has made such a difference in my socializing stamina.

Now running isn’t merely a tool to process the negative parts of life, but it also give me time to practice gratitude. It’s pretty easy to express gratitude when jogging in Maui, but I often include praise music on my playlist so that even when I’m jogging next to a sewer drain in Houston, I’m reminded of God’s hand in my life. It can be a noisy and busy life sometimes, but I always seem to find a few hours a week to hit the pavement, so it’s good to multitask and use this as a time of prayer and praise.

My family enjoying their morning coffee as I prepare for my morning run. Oh Hawaii, I miss you terribly.