Stuffed Pepper Soup

Long time, no blog!  It's been a busy summer!  But, now that I'm back to work preparing for the 2011-2012 school year, I'm back to having a little more time to do this! 

On my way back from a 4-mile walk yesterday, when I was literally 2 blocks from my apartment and directly in front of work, I tripped on a raised piece of sidewalk and fell flat on my face.  You've never seen anyone fall and stand back up so fast!  Now, normally, I laugh this off and I did a little last night.  I thought I just had some scrapes on my hands and left knee and a bruise on one of my wrists.  However, as I was walking around town for a meeting this morning, I started getting very stiff and sore and now I have a small bruise on the side of my stomach that hurts like you wouldn't believe!

I still am laughing at myself with the mere thought of me falling flat on my face while just walking (typical!), but I am also really not feeling well.  Which leads me to my Stuffed Pepper Soup recipe.  I didn't have any leftovers in my fridge tonight and all my lettuce still needs to be cleaned up before I can eat it so I was looking for a quick fix and a way to use up some peppers that I had left over from last week's farmers market and my dad's garden.  So, stuffed pepper soup was the best answer to an easy fix meal when I'm not feeling well!  I don't remember where the original idea for this recipe came from, if I remember, I'll add it to the comments section.  However, I've made quite a few changes to the original recipe and this is a recipe that I keep in my head.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Pepper Soup

Serves a lot of people :)
Ingredients:
1-2 sprays olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb 99% lean ground turkey breast
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 28oz can of crush tomatoes
3 c chicken stock
1/2 c rice of your choice (*see note below)
2 tsp dried Italian Seasoning
Salt and Pepper
2 large or three small bell peppers of assorted colors (I used green and purple this time around), cut into 1" bite-sized pieces
Parmesan cheese for topping (optional)

Spray a large dutch oven or soup pot with olive oil and add in the onion, ground turkey, and garlic, breaking up the turkey as it cooks.  Once the turkey is no longer pink and the onions are translucent, add in the tomatoes, stock, rice, Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to medium-low.  Simmer the soup until the rice is soft and almost fully cooked.  Add in the bell peppers and stir.  Simmer for another 5 minutes.  That's it!  Yum!  Leftovers are amazing!

*Note on the rice:  You have to use non-instant rice in this recipe!  You will regret instant and quick cook rice when you go to reheat the leftovers and all the rice is mush!  Regular rice only takes about another 15 minutes to cook vs. quick-cook brown rice.  You can really use any rice you like, I'm sure white rice is great in here.  I've used brown, brown basmati, and "forbidden black rice" (pictured above).  All have been equally tasty!