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“Sausage” Stuffed Peppers

Brian Sipotz • Mar 16, 2017

There are about a million stuffed pepper recipes, but this one is by far my favorite. It makes a great 1-dish meal since you are getting your protein, vegetable, smart carb, and fat all in colorful package. Another bonus, it’s easy to make a big batch so you can have them for dinner tonight, and take them for lunch tomorrow! You might put in some time to make these on a Sunday evening, but they will pay off in time saved during the week.

The wild rice makes this a very special dish. I love when the food I feed my family has a story, and this wild rice brings a deep narrative with it. My friend Stacie Sheldon introduced me to this delicious whole food that also supports members of her tribe living on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. The rice is harvested the old fashioned way, and processed by hand. If you have never seen this process check out this video and appreciate you have access to such a healthy, labor intensive food! You can certainly find wild rice at your local grocery store, but to make this recipe extra special, order your wild rice online (I get mine at  nativeharvest.com ) and find out why Ari at Zingermans dedicated an entire chapter in Zingerman’s Guide to Great Eating to Really Wild Wild Rice.

Another great part about this recipe is you can get creative with the protein. Since you are adding spices to make your own sausage, you can really choose any ground meat you like. I prefer to use ground venison if I have it, it really sticks with the “hunted, gathered, and grown” feel of the other ingredients. You can also use more traditional ground pork, chicken or turkey as well. Try a couple variations, or even mix and match your meat and see what you think.

“Sausage” Stuffed Peppers

  • 4 peppers of any color (I like red and yellow because I don’t eat too many other red and yellow foods), halved, cored and seeded.
  • 1 cup Wild Rice
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 lb of ground pork, chicken, turkey, or venison
  • 1 tsp each of salt, sugar, dry mustard, sage, black pepper, and onion powder
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil
  • half an onion, diced
  • 2 ribs celery, diced
  • 8oz portabella mushrooms, sliced

 

Make the Wild Rice: add rice to water and bring to a boil. The rice is done when it is tender enough to eat, but not so done it’s curling up. About 15-20 min. Drain excess water, if necessary.

Prep the peppers: in a separate pot, bring enough water to cover peppers up to a boil. Add peppers and parboil for about 5 minutes. They should be softer then when they went in, but still sturdy enough to hold the stuffing. Remove and set aside for later.

Brown meat in a cast iron skillet and add spices.  If you like spicy sausage, you can add a 1/2 tsp of red pepper flake here. When fully cooked, add the meat to the cooked rice and stir to combine.

Add olive oil to the skillet, add onion, celery and mushrooms and sweat over medium heat until onions are translucent and mushrooms are tender and lightly browned. About 5-7 minutes. Combine this mixture with the meat and rice and stir to combine.

Spoon meat/rice/veggie mixture into the prepped pepper halves and serve! Any leftovers will be good in the fridge for up to a week.

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29 Mar, 2022
So far I’ve introduced a little about the “non-diet” approach , as well as the Diet Cycle , which many people find themselves stuck in when using a restrictive “diet” approach to food and health. For some of those people, the idea of eating what they love and “giving up” on diet or weight loss doesn’t seem like an option, understandably. We face a LOT of pressure, day after day, to eat “clean” and lose weight. That pressure may come from well-intentioned family, friends, and healthcare professionals who are concerned about our health (more on that later); or from fear-inducing headlines that compare sugar to poison; or from photo-shopped & face-tuned ads on Instagram of celebrities selling their flat tummy tea or shapewear. We are surrounded by Diet Culture, and are forced to engage with it- no matter if it’s coming from our loved ones, acquaintances, coworkers, or even strangers. What exactly is Diet Culture? You might have an idea just from the sound of it... Messaging that promotes diet & weight loss. Right? It’s actually more than that. Here’s a definition from Aubrey Gordon, author of “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat”: Diet Culture: “A system of cultural beliefs and practices that equates thinness not just with health, but with moral virtue, and which advocates for weight loss at any cost. Diet culture isn’t just a matter of being on a diet, but of the social forces that make dieting (or lifestyle changes or wellness) culturally mandatory for so many of us.” The key phrases are “moral virtue” and “weight loss at any cost”. Diet culture doesn’t only convince us that weight loss is necessary (to be beautiful, to demonstrate our worth, or to be healthy); but it creates this pressure that we are MORALLY obligated to do so. In order to be perceived as good, responsible people, Diet Culture urges us to pursue weight loss at any cost- which could mean sacrificing our social life, a significant amount of money on supplements or meal replacements or programs, our emotional wellbeing, and even our physical wellbeing. Maybe diet and weight loss aren’t so healthy after all… And while this may not be everyone’s experience, we have research that demonstrates the following emotional impacts of restrictive dieting: Dieting is associated with higher anxiety levels (Kwasnicka, 2020) Dieting is associated with poorer emotional and mental quality of life (Burns etal, 2001) Dieting is linked with reduced life satisfaction (Esch and Zullig, 2013) Further, restrictive dieting has actually been found to cause weight GAIN. To be clear, weight gain is nothing to be ashamed about (bodies change!); but if the multibillion dollar diet industry is selling a diet plan for weight loss, they’re not exactly being honest about the likely outcomes. 1⁄3 to 2⁄3 regained weight within 1 year, with almost all weight regained within 5 years (1992 NIH Consensus) Most weight is gained back within 2 years and most gained back all the weight by 5 years (2013 Australian Research Council) A team of UCLA researchers reviewed 31 long term studies on the effectiveness of dieting and concluded that dieting is a consistent predictor of weight gain —up to two-thirds of the people regained more weight than they lost (Mann 2007) This quote from Weight Watchers former Finance Director sums it up pretty well:
07 Mar, 2022
Good morning! Thank you to everyone who came out to Break the Diet Cycle presentation. I hope you’re starting today feeling curious about Intuitive Eating and eager to rediscover your favorite foods in a fresh, positive way. I attached the PDFs of the presentation for you to reference, as well as the “HAES (Health at Every Size) Manifesto”, by Dr. Lindo Bacon, author of Health at Every Size. This provides a snapshot of the science behind the weight neutral approach, Health at Every Size, which Intuitive Eating is aligned with. For those of you who couldn’t attend, you may be wondering- what exactly is Intuitive Eating? As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, Intuitive Eating is a non-diet approach to food and health. The framework consists of 10 principles to help you examine and reevaluate your beliefs & attitudes about your body, your food, physical activity, health, and more. While practicing Intuitive Eating, individuals relearn how to eat in accordance to their natural hunger and fullness cues; food cravings; energy needs, and so on. They begin to trust their body to tell them when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat. The Ten Principles of Intuitive Eating are: 1. Reject the Diet Mentality 2. Honor Your Hunger 3. Make Peace with Food 4. Challenge the Food Police 5. Feel Your Fullness 6. Discover the Satisfaction actor 7. Cope with Your Feelings without Using Food 8. Respect Your Body 9. Exercise to Feel the Difference 10. Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition Intuitive Eating may seem like a straightforward concept, but in a culture that heavily promotes dieting and weight loss as a path to health, happiness, and even moral virtue, it can be hard to break out of the Diet Cycle (seen below). Also known as the “Restrict-Binge Cycle”, this eating pattern is typically kicked off by some diet thought, like “I need to lose weight” or “I need to start eating better”.
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Snack Break with Mary Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist & Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor at Advantage Strength
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