30 Days of Dinner: Day 1

Lately I have been a little lazy, and laziness usually means we go out to eat or end picking up some takeout. It is now at the point where we can't decide where to go eat because nothing sounds good anymore and I think this may be nature's way of our bodies shouting "give me nourishment!" Well message received because I decided to start a little challenge for myself and it's called 30 Days of Dinner!

In my Thirty Days of Dinner challenge I (or Trisden) am going cook dinner every night for the next thirty days!  The good thing is, the meals we cook are usually somewhat healthy it's just that we don't do it  often enough so I am excited to try this out and see how we feel at the end of the thirty days.  I think our cooking skills can only get better, its budget friendly, plus it's a lot healthier than going out, or at least can be anyways.  I probably won't post a recipe each and every single day, but I will be recording my progress so feel free to join me or just follow along throughout the month.  I could use the support!

Tonight I made sausage and brown rice stuffed peppers.  They are super easy to make and are extremely filling.  I usually eat two peppers which is right around 300 calories and they are pretty lowfat.  I like to cook the sausage in water and drain out all the liquid because that helps cook out a lot of the excess grease and keep the fat count down.  Recipe adapted from laurenconrad.com.

Day 1 of Thirty Days of Dinner:

Sausage and Brown Rice Stuffed Peppers

Here's what you'll need:

1 cup instant brown rice

1 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup water

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 links chicken sausage, casings removed and cut into bite size chunks

1 can italian stewed tomatoes, drain a little of the excess liquid and breakdown tomatoes (don't be afraid to use your hands!)

3 or 4 bell peppers, cleaned and halved

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 350.  Cook brown rice to package instructions using chicken broth rather than plain plain water (if you wish), it does add a lot more flavor.  In a large pan, add the sausage chunks and cover with 1/4 cup of water.  

Put on medium heat until water is hot and is almost to a boil (you can add more water if you need to) then cover and reduce heat to med/low.  Cook covered for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally and breaking sausage down into smaller bits with spoon.  

When sausage is cooked through drain the liquid and set sausage aside.  Add olive oil to the pan and saute onion and garlic until onions are translucent.  Stir in stewed tomatoes and cooked rice.  Spoon mixture evenly into each pepper.  Bake for 30 minutes.  EAT!

Stats for 1 large stuffed pepper:

Calories: 155; Carbs: 22; Fat 5; Protein: 7; Sugar: 6; Fiber:4 

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