Stuffed Peppers

You can all thank my mother and Aunt Patty for this gem. This past weekend I made some great stuffed peppers! They are really easy, do not require a lot of ingredients, and make a great meal.

All you need (to make enough for 3, or 2 with leftovers):
A bag of white rice
A pound and a half of ground chuck or sirloin
Just a bit of olive oil
Garlic clove
A can of stewed tomatoes
A jar of red pasta sauce
3 large, stout peppers (they need to be stout so that they can sit in the pyrex on their sides)
Soy sauce
Garlic salt
Pepper

To prepare:

Preheat the oven to 350. Chop up as much of the garlic clove as you like, I prefer to use a lot. Cut the three stout peppers in half and clean out the middle.

Now for the stuffing:

Make the rice first. I used the easy bag rice that you just boil for 10 minutes. While the rice is cooking, lightly cook the meat on very low heat in just a bit of olive oil. You are only going to have the meat on low heat for enough time to break it up and add flavoring to it. Stir it constantly and be careful not to brown the meat. While you have the meat on low heat, you can mix in the chopped garlic, some soy sauce, garlic salt, pepper. You will need a large pyrex, make sure to use anti-stick spray! Drain most of the juices from the can of stewed tomatoes into the pyrex, and then add in the stewed tomatoes to the meat. Take the meat off the heat while you put the rice into a large mixing bowl. Add the meat mixture to the rice in the mixing bowl and use your hands.

Now stuff those peppers:

Once you have it all mixed together, take a handful of the stuffing mixture and stuff it into one of the open pepper halves. Place that into the pyrex. Once you've stuffed all of the peppers and placed them into the pyrex, open up your can of tomato sauce and pour some into the bottom of the pyrex. Then top off each of the peppers with some sauce. Put the pyrex into the oven for about 30-45 minutes. Make sure to check the peppers after 30 minutes. You can stick a knife into the center of one to make sure it is fully cooked/not pink. If you have a meat thermometer, you want the center of the stuffed pepper to be 165 degrees when it is done. You can add a little parmesan to the top of each pepper to serve. Enjoy!