Roasted Pesto Mashed Potato Stuffed Peppers

 Stuffed peppers are just about the most perfect food.  Full of flavor, a little bit sweet, and a really savory kick when you roast it.  You can put almost anything in them, but I'll bet you never thought to stuff potato into them, so here we go!

The potato mix makes more than enough to stuff all of your peppers, large and small, and you can even boil a larger number of potatoes than you need and reserve some for plain mashed potatoes for tomorrow night's starch side dish.

The best part is the flavor absorption, which allows you to highlight the basil, making this a pesto-hybrid, combined with the roasted peppers, garlic, and onion and no doubt you'll lick the spoon, the plate, and the food processor clean (please restrain from licking the blade :) )

Serves 2 for dinner, or 6-8 as party finger food in the small peppers.

What you'll use from your bag:
3 large red peppers for stuffing
4 orange peppers for roasting
1 medium or 2 small onions
2 garlic cloves
all your basil
5 medium or 8-10 small potatoes

What else you'll need:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cashew milk
1/4 tsp sage powder
1 tsp tarragon leaves



First, you'll preheat the oven to 400 degrees
While the oven is preheating, add some salt to a large pot of water, and boil your potatoes. This takes approx. 25-30 minutes until they are soft.  (I keep my skins on, but feel free to peel)

Then, prepare your veggies to roast

Find the flat side of your large peppers, and slice a thing layer of the OPPOSITE side, exposing the hollow so you can remove the seeds.  Chop the thin layer.

Take your 4 small peppers, chop the ends, remove the seeds, and rough chop.

Rough chop the onion, and cut the ends off of the garlic, keeping them in the paper.

Toss them in a light amount of oil, and place them on a cookie sheet, for 10 minutes, then flip, and another 10 minutes.


Now, add the remaining ingredients into the food processor
When the roasted veggies are done, set the large peppers (or stuffing peppers) aside, and toss the remainder into the food processor with the basil, spices, oil, and cashew milk, making sure to squeeze the garlic out of the paper case.

Take the tender potatoes out of the boiling water, drain, and quarter them, and toss it into the food processor, and pulse to combine until desired consistency.

Scoop the filling into the empty roasted peppers, and dress with any stray basil leaves or pepper pieces.

Enjoy!

Veggie Kale Pesto Pasta

We have a variety of exciting veggies this week from BaltimOrganic's Farm. I was looking at the list wondering how to make something relatively simple and tasty. If you don't know this already...I follow a vegan diet and recently I have taken out most wheat products (it seemed to just happen that way) but this is another topic. Basically what I'm saying is you can adapt these recipes to your diet and liking.

This is what I came up with for this week, Give it a shot.... You can use whatever shape pasta you like.




What you'll need from your bag:

-Kale (2 cups)
-Garlic (2 cloves)
-Squash (2-3)
-Eggplant (2)

What else you'll need:

-Pine nuts (2/3 cup)
-Nutritional Yeast (if going vegan pesto) (2 Tbsp.)
-Olive Oil (~1/2 cup)
-Lemon (1)
-Pasta (thin noodles like angel hair or bowtie or whatever) You can get all kinds of gluten free pasta!

What's next, prepare the veggies:

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees
-Slice the squash and eggplant in half rounds that have some thickness to them but not too chunky
-Combine them in a bowl and spray with olive oil (do you have one of the olive oil sprayers?, they are awesome) or drizzle the oil over the veggies. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and stir to combine
-Place the veggies on a sheet or roasting pan and place in the over at 400 for about 15-20 minutes. Check on them about half way through to see how they are progressing- no burnt squash!

Then...:

-Cook your pasta
-Drain and set aside when done. Spray lightly and toss with olive oil so it doesn't stick together while sitting

Make the pesto...:

-In a food processor or blender combine: 2 cups of kale, 2 garlic cloves, 2 Tbsp. Nutritional Yeast, 2/3 cup pine nuts, 3-4 Tbsp. Olive Oil (good stuff), 2 Tsp. lemon juice, salt and pepper, Then puree until smooth. If it's too chunky add more lemon juice or olive oil. NOTE: you may not need to use all the pesto- depending on the quantity of pasta...

Finally:

-Place a large pan over medium heat and add a good amount of pesto.
-Add and stir in the pasta slowly to evenly distribute the pesto- add more pesto if needed
-Once the proper ratio of pasta/pesto has been reached stir in the roasted veggies
-Spruce it up with red chili peppers, more nutritional yeast, tomatoes, pine nuts, or whatever you like...

Enjoy