Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

Here is a traditional dish that I played around with one evening...Stuffed Peppers. In my experience, stuffed peppers are usually made with rice. Since going gluten-free, I discovered that quinoa is a very healthful and delicious grain that can replace rice in many dishes, so I thought I would test it out in this creation. Quinoa is amazing on its own...I like it steamed in chicken broth with a touch of salt as a side dish to chicken or as a base for a veggie dish.  I made a couple of peppers with a rice mixture in case the quinoa version wasn't very good but both my husband and I liked the taste of the quinoa version better!

First I placed my prepared pepper halves face down in a glass dish half filled with chicken broth. I let that steam and soften the peppers in the oven at 350* while I made the meat mixture. I browned organic, grass-fed, lean ground beef with diced onions, then added gluten free tomato paste (hunts is currently g-free as is Aldi's generic brand), gluten free tomato sauce (for this I used jarred Ragu marinara), garlic powder, sea-salt, fresh pepper, gluten free organic chicken broth, quinoa (that I had cooked in a rice cooker with chicken broth, Earth Balance, and salt) and parmesan cheese. I turned my peppers over, filled them, placed them back in the oven until the top of the mixture looked browned slightly and the peppers were tender. This was a very easy, healthy and satisfying dinner!