Stuffin' peppers with sausage and millet...

Last week I told you that I needed to pick up a couple extra peppers this weekend to make that pesto again to stash in the freezer. When we went to the market, they looked so good that I got a few more than I needed so I could make this Millet and Sausage Stuffed Peppers dish for dinner tonight!

Have you cooked with millet before? If you haven't, scour the bulk bins for it at your local natural or health foods store - you may even find it in the organic section of your grocery store nowadays! Millet are tiny golden spheres that are rich in protein, fiber and magnesium - we've used it before in a delicious side dish and in a Mediterranean veggie burger.

While we were waiting for the millet pearls to cook, I started browning a few hot Italian turkey sausages. After they were done and transferred to a plate to drain, we started toasting a handful of buttery pine nuts in a small pool of canola oil. Chopped onions, a couple cloves of minced garlic, chopped sun-dried tomatoes and a surprise pinch of fragrant cinnamon are added to the now-golden pine nuts. Once the onions had softened, the mixture is tossed with the fluffy cooked millet, cooked crumbles of spicy sausage and chopped fresh basil leaves. The mixture is then mounded into a couple colorful sweet bell peppers - fitted snugly in a baking dish to hold them together, a little water is poured in around them and the dish is covered to finish cooking them in the oven.

With that added water, a hot and steamy environment is created, keeping the nutty stuffing moist, while allowing the texture of the peppers to turn soft and tender. You certainly can use one color of pepper, but the combination adds some fun to the visuals! The stuffing was nutty, meat-y and the sun-dried tomatoes added a luscious depth. The cinnamon was just a little tingle on the tongue that made you go "hmm... what is that?", but you wouldn't know it was in there. Jeff wasn't too crazy about the pepper part itself - however, I was expecting that. He did finish the more mild yellow pepper, but left most of the red behind, scooping all of the stuffing out! *shrug* What can you do? Oh well, more for me! If you can't find millet, I bet this would be just as good if you used quinoa, bulgur, whole-wheat couscous or even brown basmati rice!

Recipes
Millet and Sausage Stuffed Peppers