Monsters University, Dyed Rice & Stuffed Peppers, Oh My!

Happy Monday everyone!  My oldest child is away at a camp-out for VBS with some friends of ours and my sweet girl was missing her big brother so I was on a mission to have a special girl day!  I surprised her by taking her to the theater to see:

It was a super cute movie and I was relieved that there wasn't a bunch of adult humor which usually ruins a movie for me!  Tatym loved it and we had a great time sharing snacks and giggling away!

Then I decided to consult our Summer Bucket List for a craft project and decided we'd dye rice and make pictures!

 

If you couldn't tell, Tatym is a wee bit of a camera ham!  :)  Catching her making a regular, cute smile is R-A-R-E and I'm ok with that because that's who she is and I love her spunky personality!

So to start I put some rice in snack size ziploc bags.  All we had was brown rice.  I'm sure white rice would make brighter colors but I try not to have it in the house these days as we're switching to a Clean Eating diet.  Anyways, I didn't measure how much rice, I just put some in and then I covered it with rubbing alcohol and Tatym squeezed lots of food coloring in.

Then we left it on the counter for an hour, turning it over and squishing it every 20 minutes to make sure all of the rice was getting covered.  

I then dumped out the liquid, lined a cookie sheet with wax paper and layed the rice on it to dry.

After about 30 minutes I decided to put it outside because 1: the smell of rubbing alcohol was not so pleasant for either one of us and 2: I thought it would dry faster!

Once it was all dry we got out some white cardstock paper that I had on hand and some glue and went to town making pictures and writing words.

And of course, after awhile the colors started getting mixed up so we put it all together in one of the cookie sheets and played in it, pushing it into one big pile and drawing pictures in it.

 While the rice was outside drying, of course I had to make dinner and earlier I mentioned how we've been changing to a Clean Eating diet so I've been trying LOTS of new recipes and new ways of cooking things.  We haven't switched to completely organic but I have been trying to buy everything fresh and eventually will switch to organic.  Tonight I tried my hand at stuffed bell peppers and it was YUMMY!

Here's the recipe that I used and I'm sorry, I'm totally spacing on where exactly I got the recipe---

Ingredients:
4 large bell peppers, any color & make sure they have a flat enough bottom to stand up, remove the top, ribs & seeds
water
sea salt
2 cups cooked brown rice
1 tsp EVOO
1 yellow onion, peeled & chopped
1 large carrot, peeled & grated
1 cup butternut squash, peeled & diced
3 cloves garlic, passed through a garlic press
2 cups fresh roma tomatoes, diced and set over a fine mesh sieve to drain (I just put them on a paper towel)
1- 15 oz can black beans, rinsed & drained
1 cup fresh corn kernels (I omitted this ingredient since we're trying to stay away from corn)
1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro (I omitted this one too since my hubby doesn't like it)
juice of one fresh lime
fresh ground pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350*.
Place cooked brown rice in a bowl and let cool.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Place the peppers in the water and cook briefly.  The peppers just need to be a little soft.  Remove the peppers from the water and put them upside down on a plate lined with paper towels to let the water drain out.
In a large skillet, heat the EVOO and saute onion, carrot and squash.  Cook 10 minutes, covered.  Add garlic and cook a few minutes more.  Now add tomatoes, beans and corn.  Cook for 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add rice to the mixture and season with cilantro, lime, salt & pepper.  Mix together until evenly distributed.  Set aside.
Prepare a baking pan with a light coat of cooking spray or oil.  Place each of the peppers right side up on the pan.  Stuff each pepper with the rice mixture.  Don't pack the rice too tightly.  Bake for 20 minutes and serve immediately.  You can add lean ground chicken/turkey to the rice mixture if you want.

I think they turned out great and my hubby liked it!