Stuffed Green Peppers

Don't those green peppers look delightful?

Confession: I do not actually love green peppers.  It's not that I dislike them; it's just that when picking my perfect pepper, I aim more for the red-orange-yellow variety.  However, at Big Red's Orchard last weekend, the red-orange-yellow peppers were looking a little sketchy.  The green peppers were screaming, "Buy me!  Buy me!"

Which I obviously did.

This left me with one teeny-tiny little problem: what to do with four green peppers before they spoil when you don't actually like to eat them raw.

Enter - my first experience with stuffed peppers!  Correct me if I'm wrong here, mom, but I don't recall ever eating stuffed peppers before (And if I'm not wrong - why is that?  Just curious.), so I was recipe searching blind.  I found several but this one from food.com looked easy.

And to be honest, I liked that you cut the peppers in half.  Some of those recipes where you cut a hole in the top just looked hard.  And dangerous.  Me.  Sharp objects.  Enough said.

Recipe:
4 green peppers (Ah, this recipe is meant to be!  That is exactly how many peppers I bought.)
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. italian seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup white rice, cooked
1 cup brown rice, cooked
15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

(Diva Note: I made a few modifications both out of choice and necessity.  I used ground turkey breast to reduce the fat and calories.  I didn't have italian seasoning, so I used oregano.  I prefer brown rice to white, plus it's all I have, so I used 2 cups brown.  I didn't have quite a full cup of mozzarella, so I used mozzarella and cheddar.  I'm a rebel like that.)

1. Cut off tops of peppers and cut in half lengthwise.  Remove seeds.

2. Put peppers in saucepan and cover with water.  Heat to boiling and cook for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile cook ground beef, garlic, and onions until browned. Drain (if you are using ground turkey, there won't be much to drain).

4. Add rice, tomato sauce, and seasonings to ground meat.  Cook on low until warmed through.  Place boiled green peppers into oven-proof casserole dish.  Spoon meat mixture into peppers (about 3 tablespoons per pepper).

5. Cover loosely with foil and place in 350 degree oven for 25 minutes.

6. Remove from oven, cover with your choice of shredded cheese, return to oven, and cook (uncovered) for 5-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Nutritional Information:

(Diva Note: This is the nutrition information provided by food.com for the recipe as written.  Substituting ground turkey breast will lower the fat and calories.  If you wanted to get crazy, leave out the cheese.  Also, they claim this makes 6 servings but.... do the math. 4 green peppers, cut in half = 8 halves.  If you are going to make 6 servings out of that, people are going to have to eat, what 3/4 of a pepper?  That just sounds like a pain.  Honestly, I ate half a pepper stuffed nice and full, and it was plenty.  So although the nutrition information here will not sound all that healthy, remember that you can healthify it, and serving size matters!  By  the way, if you are choosing ground turkey as an option over ground beef for health reasons, look for ground turkey breast.  Ground turkey includes white and dark meat, so it is not much leaner than lean ground beef.)

Calories: 490.4
Total Fat: 16.9 g
Saturated Fat: 7.1 g
Cholesterol: 66.1 g
Sugars: 5.8 g
Sodium: 742.1 g
Total Carbohydrates: 59.6 g
Dietary Fiber: 4.5 g
Protein: 24.5 g

(Diva Note: According to Spark Recipes, dividing the recipe into 8 servings and making the modifications above decreases the calories to just under 200 and the fat to 3.5 grams.  Wowza.)

Verdict:
Loved it!  Loved the smell.  Loved the taste.  I mean really, you can't go wrong with meat, cheese, tomato sauce, and Italian spices.  It's like pizza without the crust. 

Doesn't it just look delightful?

We had just a bit of roasted butternut squash left over for a fall-inspired side dish.

I thought that the green peppers might taste overcooked.  I don't like my cooked veggies to be mushy, and they were mushy but not in a bad way - more in a melt in your mouth amongst the cheesy, meaty deliciousness way.

 Hubby and I were both members of the clean platter club!

(Although, we do have quite a bit of leftovers....  Something to look forward to as we make the I-75 five hour trek southward Sunday afternoon...)