Red Pepper Yemista

Yemista is a delicious greek recipe for stuffed vegetables.  There are many versions of this recipe, some including meat but the one I am doing today is vegetarian and made with red peppers.  The same recipe can be used to stuff aubergines, courgettes, green peppers and tomatoes.

Ingredients:
Basmati Rice (uncooked) x 1 mug full
Large Red Peppers x 4
Red Onion x 1
Clove Garlic x 2
Vine tomatoes x 4
Packet of Feta Cheese
Toasted pine nuts
Olive oil
Fresh Mint x 2-3 handfuls
Fresh Basil x 1 handful
Fresh Parsley x 1 handful
Salt
Pepper

First, cook the mug of rice in a pot with 2 mugs of water, a pinch of salt and a drop of olive oil. Bring to the boil then simmer gently until holes appear on the top of the rice and the water has evaporated. Turn off the gas and cover the pot with a clean tea towel.

While the rice is cooking prepare the peppers by washing them, slicing off a cap from the top of each and cutting out the membrane and seeds.  Keep the cap.  Chop the tomatoes and the onion into small pieces and place into a large bowl. Add the chopped herbs and crumble in the feta cheese. Add the crushed garlic cloves, the rice, the toasted pine nuts and some salt and pepper.  Mix everything together and taste it. Add more salt and pepper as required.

Fill the peppers with the mixture and replace the caps, place onto a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and cook in the oven for about an hour at about 200 deg. C.  About half way through the cooking add a half glass off water to the tray, this will make a lovely stock for spooning over the veg when serving.

If you are stuffing other vegetables, scoop out the centres using a teaspoon, mash or blitz it and add it to the mixture.  For example, if you want to stuff tomatoes don't chop them like I did for the peppers above, just scoop out the insides and use that in the stuffing mixture instead.  Same for courgettes and aubergines, just cut them in half lengthways and run a spoon along the centre to scoop out the flesh which you can then use as part of the stuffing mixture.

Hope you give this tasty recipe a try and if so I would love to hear how it turned out.