Stuffed-Pepper Soup

For anyone in the northeast yesterday, like me, you were most likely snowed in from Pax. Classes were cancelled (after a long worry that I would only have a 2-hour delay and be driving in a blizzard), so I though what better way to use my free time than to make some nice, warm soup on a cold winter day. I had found a recipe some time ago for Stuffed-Pepper Soup, which from the pictures looked delicious. I made a few alterations to adjust for the calories, but it still turned out amazing!

Here's what you need:
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup chopped green (or red) bell pepper
1/4 cup diced onion
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups chicken broth - sodium-free
1 tsp basil (or thyme, marjoram)
1 tsp pepper

Here's how you make it:
This one gets a little complicated at the beginning doing all of the prep. Once your rice is cooked and cooled, separate it into two portions. Mix half of the rice with the uncooked ground turkey (I also added a dash of pepper to the mix) and form it into small meatballs. Place them in a frying pan a good distance apart and cook them thoroughly.

 In a separate pan add your peppers, onions, and garlic. Feel free to add a little olive oil if you like, though I omitted it. Fry them until the onions are translucent.

Once they are cooked, add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, chicken broth, basil, and pepper. Give everything a good stir and let it simmer on low for about 7 minutes, giving it a stir now and then to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom.

Finally add in the reserved brown rice and the meatballs. Again, let it simmer for about 5 minutes, just to warm-up  your rice and meatballs. It makes 4 servings.

In the original recipe, you just added in fried ground beef to the soup and served it over the rice. I though the rice meatballs made it seem more like a real stuffed pepper. Everyone really liked it, and I thought my alterations gave it a more homey touch. And the best part, 1-1/2 cups of soup was under 200 calories! So try it out and let me know what you think. And as usual, thanks for reading and peace till next time, y'all!