Mexican Stuffed Summer Peppers

I love this time of year, when the days are finally getting longer and warmer, there's nothing I enjoy more than eating a relaxing dinner outside. This recipe for Mexican black bean and rice stuffed peppers is the perfect accompaniment to an alfresco glass of wine in the sunny evening haze. This isn't the easiest or quickest recipe, but it's well worth the time and effort. The recipe serves two (two stuffed peppers with plenty of filling left on the side) but makes enough for 4 stuffed peppers as a starter. 

Ingredients:

• 2 large red peppers
• 60g brown rice
• 1 tin of black beans
• a little olive oil
• 1 red onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 green (or red) chilli
• 1 teaspoon of chipotle paste
• 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
• 1 tin of good quality chopped tomatoes (not value I'm afraid, they're too watery for the peppers)
• 1 teaspoon of mixed herbs
• plenty of salt & pepper
• 100g frozen peas

Method:

Place the brown rice in a pan of boiling water and simmer away for about 30 minutes, then drain the black beans and add them to the pan with the rice for a further 10 minutes. 

Whilst the rice and beans are cooking, finely chop the onion, crush the garlic and slice the chilli into very small slices. Place the oil in a large pan on the hob on a medium heat, once the oil starts to sizzle chuck in the onion. Let it cooks for 5 minutes then add the garlic and chilli for a few minutes more. Then it's time to add the chipotle and puree to the mix. Keep everything in the pan moving with a wooden spoon so that the pastes don't start to stick to the bottom of the pan. 

After a couple of minutes add the chopped tomatoes, herbs and seasoning and bring the ingredients to a simmer. Let this boil away for about 10 minutes and turn the oven on to around 180 degrees. Whilst the tomato mixture is cooking, take your peppers and carefully cut out a circular hole around the stalk. Once you have a complete circle pull the stalk out, this may take a bit of yanking but be careful not to split the side of the pepper. When you've got the stalk out, cut off the end with the seeds and pop it in the bin, also make sure there are no seeds left in the rest of the pepper. Coat the peppers with a very light layer of oil and place on a baking tray. 

Meanwhile drain your cooked rice and beans and mix these in with the tomato mixture, along with 100g of frozen peas. Give it a good stir, then stuff your peppers with rice mix whilst it's still hot. You should have of plenty of the saucy mix still left over, pop this to one side and you can serve it alongside your pepper. Before you place the peppers in the oven place the de-seeded stalk back on top of the pepper so that the stuffing doesn't become too dry. Then you're ready to bake the peppers in the oven for around 20 minutes, you'll know they're done when the pepper begins to feel soft and the tops start to brown. 

I served mine with a fresh salad, the heated leftover stuffing and large glass of wine. The next evening I still had some of the stuffing left over and tried it in a tomato which was also really tasty! But if you want to give it a go I would use a beef tomato, my salad tomato didn't really have the same effect...