Packed with a tasty vegetable rice filling, these stuffed peppers make a great meat-free midweek meal
Serves 6
Ready in 1 hour 10 minutes
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
150g risotto rice
1 courgette, coarsely grated
1 litre hot vegetable stock
3 ripe tomatoes
2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley or mint
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
6 green peppers
Heat the oil in a large, deep frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and sauté for 4-5 minutes, stirring. Add the garlic and sauté, stirring, for a further few minutes. Stir in the rice and courgette and cook for 1 minute.
Add a ladleful of the hot stock and simmer, stirring until the rice has absorbed all the liquid. Repeat until nearly all the stock has been used up and the rice is almost tender. This should take about 20 minutes.
Cut a slice from the top and bottom of each tomato and finely chop the rest. Stir the chopped tomatoes into the risotto with the parsley or mint and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir in the cheese.
Preheat the oven to 170C/150C Fan/Gas Mark 3. Cut a thin slice from the base of each pepper so they stand upright. Slice off the top of each pepper and pull out and discard the stalk and seeds.
Spoon the risotto into the peppers and place them in a greased ovenproof dish. Top each pepper with a tomato slice and pour over the rest of the stock. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the peppers are tender. Serve with a mixed leaf salad.
Get the right rice: Use a short-grain risotto rice such as Arborio for this recipe – it’s sold in most supermarkets or Italian delis.
