Stuffed Peppers

When Jon and I first got married, cooking wasn't a love of mine. The day he moved in, I made tacos to celebrate (poor guy...)! I started to cook more often and would try new things; one thing he loved was my stuffed peppers. Well once I heard that I started to make them every other week...he got a little tired of them!! I haven't made these for a few years, and was happy to hear that he wanted to eat them again.

Stuffed peppers aren't only for dinner - I made them once with eggs for breakfast. Click here for that post.

Note - when we were first married I was a vegetarian, so while I'd make real beef stuffed peppers for him, I would use MorningStar Farms Recipe Crumbles (fake ground meat) to make my own. Here is a post featuring vegetarian stuffed tomatoes, and another with quinoa stuffed tomatoes (peppers work as well).

This recipe is my own recipe.

Ingredients

• Peppers (I used 5 but could have made 6)
• 1.25 lbs ground beef
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz crushed tomatoes
• Salt, pepper, dried parsley, oregano
• Parmesan cheese
• Cooked rice

Directions

• Cut off tops of peppers and clean out seeds.
• Heat a large pan. Add ground meat, chopping it up as you go, until browned.
• Add onions, garlic, spices, and almost all of the crushed tomatoes. Let it cook for several minutes, tasting it as you go and adjusting the spices as needed.
• Add one small handful shredded Parmesan cheese (you should know by now that I don't measure...I make it up as I go along!).
• Add 2 large spoonfuls cooked rice and mix everything together. Taste again and adjust the spices if needed.
• Coat the bottom of a baking dish with the rest of the tomatoes. If you used chunky tomatoes, coat the dish with tomato sauce.
• Fill each pepper with the mixture, pressing it down to maximize the space.
• Cover with foil and bake on 375 for about 20 minutes.
• Remove foil, top each pepper with Parmesan cheese, and bake for another 5 minutes.

This is a full meal all wrapped up in a pepper - you have your veggie, meat, and starch all in one neat little package. Delicious!