Bridget’s Weekly Running Recipe- Week 18

Stuffed Piquillo Peppers with Slow Cooked Vegetable Sauce

You will need:

A 375 degree oven

1 cup lean ground pork
1 cup quinoa, cooked
1 egg, beaten
½ cup goat cheese, crumbled
zest from 1 lemon
1 T parsley, chopped
1 T oregano, chopped
8 – 10 jarred piquillo peppers, rinsed and patted dry
1 – 1 ½ cup slow cooked vegetable sauce from last week’s recipe!!!
salt & pepper

In a small bowl combine the egg, ground pork, quinoa, lemon zest, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper, mix well. It should look like meatball filling. Fold in the goat cheese crumbles until just combined. Place the mixture in a pastry bag and pipe into the piquillo peppers filling them ¾ of the way full.  In a medium sized baking dish spread ½ of the sauce to cover the bottom. Arrange the piquillos in the dish and spoon a little more of the sauce over the top.  Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or until they feel firm and the meat is cooked.

This recipe is also great if you omit the pork and add one more cup of quinoa. If you can get fresh piquillos and find the time to roast and peel them they are fantastic. They are available near the end of the summer at the farmers market.

Bridget Batson, runner, healthy eating enthusiast, recipe contributor at Runner’s World, and head chef at Gitane, is using her culinary expertise and nutrition knowledge to help you eat right and eat well during the 2011 training season. We’ll be including a new recipe each week that not only helps you meet your nutritional needs as a runner, but tastes good as well! For more information about Bridget Batson or Gitane Restaurant, please visit www.gitanerestaurant.com