Weekend Cookbook Challenge- Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

My first challenge of any kind!!! Although it's not the weekend, I knew this challenge, Weekend Cookbook Challenge, was one to participate in. The theme, hosted by Lis of LaMiaCucina, is Crockpots, Dutch Ovens, and Pressure Cookers. I decided a long time ago, back when the kids were little, that the Crockpot is my friend. I love the idea of making good meals with seemingly little effort. I had planned on cooking up some pork today, but Mark made corned beef yesterday and I didn't want meat again tonight.
For Christmas, I got Lindsay and Lacey both The Taste of Home Baking Book. There is a postcard inside for a free subscription to the Taste of Home Magazine. The first mag came this week and Lacey and I decided that the Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers looked good. I used to make stuffed peppers often, but haven't in a long time.
As usual, I played with the recipe a bit. I used a 14 oz. can of fire roasted tomatoes instead of the fresh. Instead of both the beans, I used 1 can of Garbanzo Beans as we just had black beans recently. I eliminated the salt and added extra Parmesan and some mozzerella.
This is definitely something to keep in my repetoire. This seemed even easier than my usual recipe because you are only precooking the rice instead of rice and ground meat.

Crockpot Day

The weather was so bad yesterday, over 14 inches of snow, that we decided to watch movies and basketball. Yeah Tarheels!!!
Anyway, it would have been a great day to bake, but my butt told me I'd better not. By the time I figured out I wanted something easy, I had not a whole lot of time to crockpot all day. So I pulled out 3 of my many crockpot cookbooks and started searching. I settled on one I hadn't used in awhile, Crock-It by Barbara Murray. It is really a very small, homey sort of cookbook. There are a few mexican recipes in it that have become staples, one for chicken enchiladas and one for a great red chili sauce. But what I ended up making wasn't so much a recipe from the book as inspired by several recipes and what I had in my kitchen. Here is what I ended up with - let's call it ...

Mexicali Crockpot

multigrain (or flour) tortillas
1 can refried beans
1 can black beans
1 can chopped green chilis
1 - 14 oz can fire roasted tomatoes (drained with juice set aside)
1 pkg Perdue roasted chicken already cooked (2 cups)
8 oz bag shredded cheese (I use 2% cheese)
1 pkg taco seasoning
sour cream for topping

I layered 1 tortilla spread with some of the refried beans on the bottom. Layer some of all the ingredients on top of that, then repeat layers a few times. I poured the juice from the tomatoes (there wasn't much) on the top and topped with some more cheese.
I cooked on HIGH for about 4 hours. I'm sure it can be cooked instead all day on LOW if you so desire. Slice into all the layers and serve. We had 4 servings, but my crockpot was only a little more that half full. You can add more ingredients and layer more to serve more people.
Garnish with the sour cream.
I served this with a tossed salad of
avocado
cucumber
tomato
green onions
lemon pepper to taste.