Daniel Fast Recipe #3: Stuffed Pepper-Boats and Masa Flowers

Okay. Honestly, this the recipe I am most excited to share with you. Why you ask? Not because it was the best (although now, come to think of it, it may be...), but because I created it all myself!

Yes! This is a genuine Claire Creation! But before I get too proud, I want to thank the Lord for blessing me with this sudden creativity in cooking. I never knew God had this talent in mind for me and I am so blessed to be able to give it back to Him.

I thought all through dinner about what to call this recipe, and I decided on the above (and below) ...

Stuffed Pepper-Boats and Masa Flowers

Here are the Stuffed Pepper-Boats:

And here are the Masa Flowers:

(...can you tell I like Instragram?)

Here is what you will need and how you will make them*:

NOTE* This recipe is for 2 people, so if you need to make it for 4, double the recipe! If it's just you eating, well, then you'll have leftovers for tomorrow. Who doesn't love that?

Ingredients for the Stuffed Pepper-Boats*:

1 large bell pepper

1/2 cup of brown rice

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of soy sauce (Ethlyn, you can just leave this ingredient out and it will still taste good!)

2 tablespoons of salsa

2 slices of a small onion, chopped finely

2 mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained

2 large handfuls of spinach

A few shakes of garlic powder, cumin, salt, black pepper, and cilantro (to taste)

Some olive oil

NOTE* If you do not care for any of the vegetables or seasonings called for, feel free to leave them out. It won't hurt my feelings, I promise. You can also use barley , couscous, white rice, or wild rice instead of the brown rice. Honestly, I bought parsley when I meant to buy cilantro (silly!), so mine did not include cilantro.)

Ingredients for the Masa Flowers:

1 cup of Corn Masa flour (do you know how I named these things now?)*

1 cup of water

2 tablespoons of salt

A few spoonfuls of tomato sauce

About 1/3rd of a zucchini

1 small sweet red pepper*

Some olive oil

NOTE* If you do not have Masa flour, you can use corn meal, wheat flour, or regular flour. Instead of a sweet pepper, you can use a few slices of a regular pepper, or sometimes you can buy roasted red peppers in a glass jar. Any of these other options will work.

Since these both go together, I will tell you step by step what I did to make both of them to be done at the same time. Here it goes:

1. Preheat oven to 425

2. Measure the corn masa flour, water, and salt into a mixing bowl and sir. The dough will be really easy to kneed, but it won't feel like regular flour dough; it doesn't stay together as well.

3. Roll the corn dough into 6 little balls with your hands (remember, this serves 2, so 3 for each!)

4. Set dough aside 

5. Boil 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan, add 1/2 cup rice into the boiling water. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer until water is gone.

6. While rice is cooking, gut a large bell pepper so that the seeds and stem are gone. Cut the pepper in half the long way.

7. Chop the mushrooms and onion.

8. Mix the salsa, black beans, and spinach into said bowl along with the mushrooms and onion.

9. Take a zucchini and use a peeler to shave off curricular pieces. The pieces will be very thin-- almost transparent. 

10. Slice the red sweet pepper into long, thin strips

11. Don't forget about the rice! It's probably done by now, so go turn off the heat and let it sit.

12. Get a baking sheet (I actually used my nonstick pizza pan), and spray it lightly with cooking spray. Place the peppers onto the sheet so that the outside of the pepper is on the bottom (they should look like little pepper-boats!)

13. Season the pepper-boats with your favorite seasonings (I used garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin)

14. Grab the little masa balls you made and flatten between your hands, then arrange all 6 on the pan along with the peppers. Put a spoonful of tomato sauce on each and spread around to cover most of the dough. Season them the same as the peppers.

15. Dress the Masa Flowers with the zucchini shavings and sliced sweet peppers. Top with cilantro (or in my case... parsley)

16. Drizzle some olive oil over the peppers and the Masa Flowers and put in the oven.

17. Heat up a skillet on the stove and spray with cooking spray. Once heated, dump the bowl you set aside containing the salsa, black beans, spinach, mushrooms, and onion so that the ingredients are cooking in the skillet.

18. Also dump the cooked rice into the skillet and add the lemon juice, seasonings, and soy sauce (optional)

19. Stir so that all ingredients are heated and cooked throughly. Reduce heat.

20. Take the pan out of the oven. Spoon the rice-bean-salsa-veggie mixture into the pepper-boats so that they are heaping, but not overflowing. You may have some rice mixture left over, which you can serve on the side (or eat before hand as an appetizer like Dennis and I did...).

21. Once the pepper-boats are full, place the pan back into the oven.

22. Now, they have to stay in there for a while longer, so here's where I usually do the dishes, put things away, set the table, and clean up. By the time I'm done, the food is usually about done. (The peppers and masa flowers should cook for about 30 minuets, including the time before you stuffed the pepper-boats, so start timing as soon as you put them in the first time).

23. When the time arrives, take the tray out of the oven, and arrange the food artfully onto 2 plates.

24. Enjoy your wonderful dinner! 

Now, I know that is a lot of steps, but I wanted to be as detailed as possible with how I did it. The timing element of cooking dinner can be tricky, and since these two things bake at the same time, I wanted to show you how to do both, and provide the timing, even for the clean up!

Here is a picture of the final product!

But really Claire, how good were they really?

Okay, so I know this is my first recipe that I created myself, but at the risk of bragging about my cooking, I'm going to go ahead and say this was one of the best dinners I've made so far. No joke! Dennis actually asked me where I bought the rice from because he thought it was one of those uncle ben boxed and pre-seasoned rice mixes! The Masa Flowers were really good too! They were almost like little pizza appetizers with a Mexican feel to them. I honestly don't think I would change anything about the way I made them tonight (except perhaps try adding some cheese in the mix when the Daniel Fast is over for you guys)! 

If you do make them, please let me know what you thought of them! I promise you won't hurt my ego if you don't like them as much as I do! (While it is true that I have been known to occasionally have strange tastes, you'll be comforted to know that Dennis really enjoyed them as well :-)

Have a great night everyone! Let me know how you're doing and if you have any requests!