Fitter Fave Foods-Chicken and Black Bean Stuffed Bell Peppers

As part of our healthier life style, Husband and I decided that we need to stop eating so much ground beef and start eating more chicken, lean beef, etc. because although I always buy the lean beef, it still isn't THAT great for you....at least not if you eat a beef based meal almost daily. I already own stacks of "healthy" cook books but felt like I wanted to get some new inspiration so I headed to our local library and checked out a few cookbooks. One of the ones I checked out was "Better Homes and Gardens Healthy Family Cookbook", available here. The first recipe I tried from this cookbook was for Black Bean Stuffed Bell Peppers. I ran this by husband and he said it sounded great and would be even better if I added some chicken to it so I did! Here is my adaptation of the original recipe:

Black Bean and Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers

Ingredients:

2 green bell peppers, cut in half, with stems and seeds removed
1/2 cup chopped carrots (I used my peeler to "grate" the carrots into thin pieces instead of chopping)
1/2 cup red onion, diced
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz boneless, skinless chicken breast, diced *see note below
1/2 cup frozen yellow corn kernels
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese (this is just to sprinkle on the top and can be omitted)
nonstick cooking spray

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 F
• In a large skillet over medium heat, cook chicken until partially done (if you cook this all the way, the chicken will become dry during the baking so I just cooked until the outside of the diced pieces were white then removed from heat). I added some seasoning to my chicken...I used this and it was SUPER good!! 
• In a large bot of boiling water, cook the bell pepper halves for 3 to 5 minutes or until crisp tender (that is the word the cookbook used, I thought "what the heck does that really mean?" and just threw them in there for 4 minutes to be safe...) Remove and invert onto a paper towel to drain.
• Add the carrots and red onion to boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Add frozen corn kernels and cook for additional 2 minutes. Remove from heat and drain well. 
• In a medium bowl, combine corn/carrot/onion mixture with black beans and mix well. 
• Spray a 9x9 glass baking dish with nonstick spray and place peppers open side up in dish. Fill with 1/4 of chicken then top with 1/4 of the bean mixture. Top with a pinch of shredded cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until done. 

These were really good and super filling! The only thing I will change when I make these again is to add some salsa to the bean mixture and maybe to garnish. It may also be good with some diced green chilies? The original recipe calls for adding ranch or Italian dressing but I didn't have any so I couldn't although I don't think I would have liked the flavor as much with it in there! 

*note from above: a digital food scale. When we registered for our wedding, people laughed at the fact that I added a nice Digital Food Scale and it gets used in our house DAILY. It can switch between grams and ounces so you can use it to measure meats, cheeses or veggies/fruits and also flour and sugar while baking. This thing is awesome. It is definitely worth the money and a MUST HAVE for anyone who wants to watch their portions/lose/maintain weight loss or even just to have better baked goods!!