Vegan Chef Nicole Derseweh’s Vegan Recipes, Part 1 of 2 – Budget-friendly Orzo Pasta Stuffed Bell Pepper

“Hi, I’m Chef Nicole Derseweh, and I’m the creator, CEO, and head (vegan) chef of The Martha Project. Today I’m going to be sharing with you stuffed bell peppers. I created this dish to show people that eating plant-based and vegan is very affordable. This whole recipe comes together in under $5 a serving.”

“Today we’re using these colorful red bell peppers, orange and yellow. But if you don’t have bell peppers in your region, you could easily use a stuffed squash or maybe a stuffed eggplant. If you’re cooking with no oil for health reasons, you can just use water to prevent the peppers from sticking to the bottom. Put them in our tray, pop these in the oven, and get them roasting.

Let’s start preparing the stuffing. Today we’re going to be using some heirloom cherry tomatoes. I’ve got my skillet heating up; put a little bit of oil in the bottom. Have the oil that’s hot. We’re going to add the fresh herbs, and that’s going to start pulling the flavor from the herbs right into the oil. Then you’re going to start adding your tomatoes. Healthy fats that come from nuts, olives, avocados, and coconut are really good for our brain, and help protect our immune system. So we’re putting some black kalamata olives in the dish, a little bit of fresh black pepper. And for a little bit of extra flavor, we’re going to put the lemon zest. Also, a little bit of the juice.

Orzo is a type of pasta. Now the water is boiling; just pour our orzo pasta right in. OK, it’s been about eight minutes. Great, so we’ll just dress our pasta with a drizzle of olive oil, and then we’re going to combine it with our tomatoes that we already roasted and flavored. We are ready to plate.

You’re going to start by pulling one of your peppers out and using it as the base. And then stuff a generous handful of the spinach right in the bottom. The heat from the pepper and the orzo is going to just cook this spinach, enough just to wilt it down. Put our piping hot orzo filling with our tomatoes right over the top, and stuff this.

Some fresh basil for garnish, a few more of our pine nuts, and of course; our vegan feta cheese. A tiny bit more lemon zest to keep the dish bright and fresh. And we’ll just finish off with our fresh basil. Your dish is ready to eat.”