Easy Recipe for Stuffed Green Peppers

Hola!

I've been working away on various projects around the yards and gardens. Working through what feels like literal "Hell" outside most days, with extremely high temperatures and excessively high humidity.  Tropical - equatorial weather I'd say - practically sitting right on top of Lake Michigan (with its famously cold waters) in southeastern Wisconsin.  I took a bunch of photos of items that need to be addressed with the intention of doing a post on how a gardener's work is never done and yep, haven't done it yet.  Sigh.

Photo:  From Ragu website recipe for stuffed green peppers.

I LOVE stuffed green peppers.  I sometimes buy Stoffer's Stuffed Green Peppers if they're in stock, but they are not often in the freezer section of the supermarket where I shop when I'm there.  I've used online recipes to make stuffed green peppers before, but I wanted one that was easier to make, took less time (for me, at least) to make, and hopefully would be tastier.  Prior recipes I've used produced good and edible results, but didn't give me that "punch" in the tomato sauce/base that I like (e.g., they didn't taste like Stoffer's Stuffed Green Peppers), despite using plenty of spices/herbs and seasonings to pump up the flavor.

One thing I DO like for it's flavor is Ragu ready-made spaghetti sauce.  The chunky garden style with green peppers and onion is my favorite. (I also use it as my secret weapon when I make my chicken cacciatore).   I also like the similar Prego sauce, but Ragu is often on sale more than Prego, and I always try to buy what's on sale to save whatever money I can.  My walk early Monday morning to the supermarket offered the Prego brand of sauce on sale, so I bought a regular size jar of Prego tomatoe sauce with green peppers and onions rather than the traditional tomato sauce.

Here's a link to the recipe at the Prego website.  I'm listing the ingredients and instructions below, because I want to talk about how some of this worked out for me.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup uncooked instant rice (the recipe called for brown rice, for a lower cal recipe.  I used my favorite Basmati rice instead).
• 1 pound 90% extra lean ground beef
• 3 cups Prego Tomato Sauce (your favorite variety)
• 6 medium green peppers (I purchased 3 larger green peppers - I'm only feeding myself and only have so much room in my freezer for left-overs)
• 1 cup shredded fat free mozzarella cheese (about 4 ounces)

Directions:

• Cook the rice according to the package directions but do not add any salt or butter.
• Cook the ground beef in a skillet until it's well-browned, breaking up the meat as you cook.  Pour off any fat after meat is cooked.
• After ground beef is drained of any grease, stir in 2 cups of Prego sauce and the cooked rice.  Set mixture aside.
• Cut each green pepper in half lengthwise, removing core, seeds and white membranes.
• Place the pepper shells in a large baking dish or roasting pan (big enough to fit the peppers)
• COVER the dish (I used aluminum foil tightly wrapped over the top of the baking dish)
• Spoon the meat/sauce/rice mixture into the peppers - really stuff them and mound them up.  Spoon the other 1 cup of sauce over the peppers and let drip into the baking dish/pan.
• Bake at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes or until peppers are tender, then remove from oven.
• Top with the cheese, let stand for 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.

They turned out looking absolutely scrumptious and delicious, YUM YUM!  

It didn't occur to me until afterward that perhaps I should have cut down on the amount of rice, ground beef and sauce I needed to make the recipe since I only used 3 halved green peppers, not 6 large halved green peppers that the recipe calls for.  I compensated for the lack of 3 additional peppers by really piling on the ground beef/sauce/rice mixture into the pepper halves I had (6 instead of 12) and then added extra sauce to top off the peppers as the mixture seemed a little dry to me and I felt it needed added sauce in the pan before baking. I had a partially used jar of Ragu sauce in the fridge so I used the rest of that.  

I didn't have mozzarella cheese and while at the store didn't even think to buy any.  Instead, after I'd removed the peppers from the oven and they were resting I tore up a couple of slices of Swiss cheese from my fridge and placed that on top of the cooked peppers.  The Swiss cheese melted just fine.  One serving of stuffed peppers was more than enough to fill me up.  I kept one for the fridge to have for supper tonight and put the other 4 halves into individual freezer containers for future meals.

If you make this recipe and use 6 large halved peppers, you're going to have a LOT of stuffed green peppers on hand, but this is a great recipe if you have a larger family or hearty eaters (lots of guys at home or as guests), or enough freezer space.  I've frozen homemade stuffed green peppers before and they thaw out and heat up just fine.

Now, back to pulling weeds out of the lawn and watering the grass.  It took half a day to adequately water the front yard and garden beds.  Now I'm working on getting the backyard done.  I was going to cut the backyard grass today (the front yard was done on Monday) but the grass is doing that tell-tale laying flat on the ground that means it's parched for water.  A good soak will perk it right back up and it should be ready and standing nice and erect for an easy cut tomorrow morning after the dew dries.  Now watch - all the rain forecast over the past 2 weeks that has missed us time after time will come tonight, LOL!  Isn't that always the way it goes.