Easy Stuffed Peppers

I am trying to help my family begin to eat healthier. One of the things that has helped us the most is a Costco membership. They sell most of their fresh vegetables in large quantities so I have been challenged to use what we buy in recipes or freeze for later use.

In the past I haven't been a huge green pepper fan, but I've gotten used to eating it in salads and Tim grows them and loves them (especially hot peppers). For years he would ask for stuffed green peppers and just recently I've discovered what a great dish it is! I've taken this recipe and tweaked it to fit my family. I found the original recipe on cooks.com. For me, the basic idea was to take a tomato based sauce and add those things I had handy, adding the rice to the mixture to complete it.

Ingredients

4-6 green peppers (I used yellow, orange and red)

1 cup rice

1 pound ground beef (I used ground turkey)

1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

1 16-ounce tomato sauce

1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes

Prepared spaghetti sauce (homemade or store bought is fine)

Salt, pepper or seasonings to taste

Several of these steps can be done at the same time if you multi-task well!

Cook the rice separately (bring 2 cups of water to boil, add 1 cup rice and simmer for 15 minutes or until done).

In large skillet brown beef with diced tops of peppers. Drain and return to pan. Add 15-ounce tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and spaghetti sauce (completely up to you how thick you want this sauce) and 1/4 cup water. Let simmer while you prepare the peppers. When rice is done, add this to the meat mixture.

While your meat is simmering, prepare your peppers by chopping off the top and rinsing the seeds out. Go ahead and use spray oil to grease the baking dish. Instead of boiling the peppers on the stove I cooked them in the baking dish for about 6-7 minutes in the microwave on high, just until slightly limp.

Arrange on baking dish and stuff with meat and rice mixture.

Pour 16-ounce can of tomato sauce over peppers.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Healthy hints:
*Use brown rice. This requires extra cooking time unless you use instant.
*Choose ground turkey over ground beef. Mixed in with other ingredients my family doesn't notice a difference and it's less expensive if bought in a 1-pound roll.
*Add mushrooms, onions, or other vegetables as desired.
* I never cook with salt. My husband salts everything so I refuse to add it when I cook!

I doubled the meat portion (meat, tomato sauce, rice, etc.) of this  recipe and had enough of it left to freeze for another meal. I also doubled the rice to freeze for another dish.



Enjoy, from my home to yours!

I'm linking with Between Naps on the Porch Made in a Day Fireflies and Jellybeans Mrs. Happy Homemaker Mrs. Fox's Sweets