Pulled Pork and Vegetable Stuffed Bell Pepper Boats

 

Sorry so blurry, taken through the screen!

Look at my 3 adorable pups. Jaz was staring at me through the window as I was making breakfast this morning as if to say, “You’re wasting time making breakfast when you COULD be taking me out for a walk??” We get that attitude a lot from our dogs. 😉

Napping together, and Ghost has a paw on Jaz! How sweet 🙂

Today my exercise regimen is planned to look like this:

4 mile brisk walk (sub 14 min. miles)

20 minutes strength yoga (free Dave Farmar podcast!!)

30 lunges at each mile marker on my walk

I’m loving the free RunKeeper app on my iPhone- it keeps track of pace, distance, time & calories burned and keeps me working hard! I always feel great after an invigorating workout but this may be somewhat of a stretch since fast walking is getting more difficult these days… We shall see how it goes! After my walk, my plans for the day include getting some groceries for GAME DAY tomorrow, cleaning house, and finally packing my hospital bag for delivery!! Any suggestions from mommas out there for what essentials to pack?

On to dinner from the other night!

I’ve been falling back in love with my Crock-pot as of late- there’s something so freeing about tossing some ingredients in a big hot pot and knowing that dinner will be ready later that night without so so much as another thought. The other day I dug way back into our deep freezer (man, I need to clean that thing out…) and found a big ol’ pork butt! Heehee. HEY. Grow up.  🙂

It was frozen rock solid, so I just tossed it in the crock pot on high all day and by the end of the night, we had a LARGE amount of pork. I was just going to shred the pork with forks, but it was taking a while and not as ‘fall-apart’ as I would have liked it, so I thought I’d toss it in the food processor and make quick work of it.

I underestimated the power of the processor. Basically turned my lovely pork butt into dog food. What I had hoped would happen was that it would shred the meat, but I must have processed it too long (10 sec is too long?!) and it looked like canned Purina! Ick.  So… instead of pulled pork buns for dinner, I called an audible and decided to go a different route to mask the dog food look of the delicious meat! Which maybe I should clarify- it did not taste like dog food, promise. 

These peppers are chock full of vegetables, and then the tasty filling is loaded into yet ANOTHER vegetable. That’s my kind of dinner! Filling, but nutritious and delicious. It’s rapidly becoming one of Joey’s favorite meals too! Slam dunk.

I’m sure it’ll be a hit with your family too!

Happy Saturday to you!

~M

(P.S. GO NINERS!!!)

 

Pulled Pork and Vegetable Stuffed Pepper Boats

Ingredients

1 pork butt, cooked and shredded (seasoned with S&P and chicken broth for 10 hours)

4 oz chopped baby bella mushrooms

3 bell peppers, color of your choice

2 cups wild rice, cooked

3 small tomatoes, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

3 slices mozzarella cheese, for topping

3/4 cup black beans (optional)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (if you like some heat!)

1 TBSP EVOO

Directions

Wash all vegetables prior to handling. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut off tops of bell peppers and scrape out the seeds. Set the tops aside.

Spray the peppers with cooking spray and put in oven to soften as you prepare the filling. (About 10-15 minutes)

Save as much bell pepper ‘meat’ as you can from the tops and dice. Add bell pepper and onion to a large pan and saute until translucent, season with salt & pepper. After cooking for a few minutes, add diced mushrooms, black beans, tomatoes, and cooked rice to the pan. Season with red pepper and parmesan. Stir in pulled pork to filling- taste and season more as necessary with S&P.

Take peppers out of the oven, and stuff with filling. Top with a slice of mozzarella cheese and put back into oven for about 25 minutes until thoroughly heated through. (everything is already cooked, so oven time is minimal!)

** I usually stuff a whole bell pepper, but lately I’ve been cutting the bell pepper in half length-wise and making ”bell pepper boats” – half the portion and still very filling!**