Stuffed Bell Peppers and Stuffed Tomatoes

Tonight for dinner I thought I would use up some bell peppers my sister in law gave me from her garden before they went bed.  I called my mom this morning and asked her for her recipe from when I was younger.  She informed me that she had never used a recipe she just made meatloaf and stuffed it in the peppers then baked them...fat lot of help that was!  So I looked up some recipes online to get ideas and here is what I came up with :)  (Scroll to bottom for full recipe without pictures)

I'm going to start with the tomatoes because I used the same stuffing for both but I left the meat out of the tomatoes, on and I didn't really measure anything...oops!

1 can of corn
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 cup instant rice (uncooked!)
2 Banana Peppers--Diced Small
2 TBS minced garlic
1/2 onion diced small
Tomatoes--for stuffing
Bell Peppers-enough to stuff plus 1 or 2 diced small
1-2 lbs ground meat (I used Turkey)
Parmesean Cheese
Any shredded cheese (I used colby jack but mozzarella would be awesome!)

Preheat oven to 450ish

Start with your peppers and tomatoes in a baking dish with sides high enough to catch any liquid that might overflow from the peppers and tomatoes, I used my super cute green one that Charlotte from my moms church gave me as a wedding present.

Core and seed your peppers and tomatoes. Then place them in the baking dish (if you are doing a whole lot I would recommend putting the tomatoes and peppers in sepearte dishes.  The tomatoes really take a little less time to cook so mine ended up good but if I had made more than two they wouldn't have reheated very well.

Put your instant rice in a microwave save bowl (I used the green mixing bowl that matches my pan because they make me happy) :)

Add 1 cup of liquid to the rice, (I used the juice from my canned corn then made up the difference with water) then cook for 5 minutes (even if the box says 6, trust me you don't want soggy rice!)

Remove rice from microwave and fluff up with a spoon then add your corn

1/2 the can of tomato sauce (1/2 cup)

1 Tablespoon (ish...ok maybe 3 tablespoons) of garlic (that is totally my version of 1 tablespoon of garlic.  If you are one of those crazy people who don't like it use less or leave it out. You probably don't want to use much more though because it might overpower the other flavors)

Add 2 diced banana peppers (or japaleno's or any other spicy pepper if you would like, you can also leave these out but I had them so I used them!) 1-2 diced bell peppers (any color) and 1/2 diced onion

Mix everything up really well

Add 1-2 hand-fulls of Parmesan cheese and 1-2 hand-fulls of shredded cheese of your choice

I "accidentally" put some cheese in the bottoms of my peppers and tomatoes too!

I made my tomatoes vegetarian style so I mixed everything up really well and stuffed the tomatoes at this point :)

Add your meat I used ground turkey but you could use any ground meat try to stick with fairly lean meat though since we are not pre-cooking it for this recipe.

Mix everything up really well again

Stuff the peppers

Top everything with more cheese (the Parmesan gives it a nice crust on top and the melty cheese is just delicious)

Cover in tinfoil and bake until internal temperature is fully cooked for the type of meat you are using (polultry 170-180, beef could go as low as 140-150) These took about 1 hour at 450 ish (my apartment oven is a little off)

If you want to be super awesome when they are almost done take off the tinfoil, add more shredded cheese and let it cook uncovered so you get this yummy bubbly crust on top!

Let cool a little while before eating or you will burn your mouth.

I used about 1/2 of my filling so I added the tomato sauce to the rest of it and mixed it up then put it in a freezer bag to use later to either make more stuffed peppers or to use as a base for stuffed pepper soup I'm not sure which.

Enjoy!

Condensed recipe:

1 can of corn
1 small can of tomato sauce

1 cup instant rice (uncooked!)

2 Banana Peppers--Diced Small
2 TBS minced garlic
1/2 onion diced small

Tomatoes--for stuffing

Bell Peppers-enough to stuff plus 1 or 2 diced small

1-2 lbs ground meat (I used Turkey)
Parmesean Cheese
Any shredded cheese (I used colby jack but mozzarella would be awesome!)


Preheat oven to 450ish

Start with your peppers and tomatoes in a baking dish with sides high enough to catch any liquid that might overflow from the peppers and tomatoes

Core and seed your peppers and tomatoes. Then place them in the baking dish (if you are doing a whole lot I would recommend putting the tomatoes and peppers in sepearte dishes.  The tomatoes really take a little less time to cook so mine ended up good but if I had made more than two they wouldn't have reheated very well.
Put your instant rice in a microwave safe bowl

Add 1 cup of liquid to the rice, (I used the juice from my canned corn then made up the difference with water) then cook for 5 minutes (even if the box says 6, trust me you don't want soggy rice!)

Remove rice from microwave and fluff up with a spoon then add your corn

1/2 the can of tomato sauce (1/2 cup)

1 Tablespoon (ish...ok maybe 3 tablespoons) of garlic (that is totally my version of 1 tablespoon of garlic.  If you are one of those crazy people who don't like it use less or leave it out. You probably don't want to use much more though because it might overpower the other flavors)

Add 2 diced banana peppers (or japaleno's or any other spicy pepper if you would like, you can also leave these out but I had them so I used them!)

1-2 diced bell peppers (any color)

1/2 diced onion

Mix everything up really well

Add 1-2 hand-fulls of Parmesan cheese and 1-2 hand-fulls of shredded cheese of your choice

I "accidentally" put some cheese in the bottoms of my peppers and tomatoes too!

I made my tomatoes vegetarian style so I mixed everything up really well and stuffed the tomatoes at this point

Add your meat I used ground turkey but you could use any ground meat try to stick with fairly lean meat though since we are not pre-cooking it for this recipe.

Mix everything up really well again

Stuff the peppers

Top everything with more cheese (the Parmesan gives it a nice crust on top and the melty cheese is just delicious)



Cover in tinfoil and bake until internal temperature is fully cooked for the type of meat you are using (polultry 170-180, beef could go as low as 140-150) These took about 1 hour at 450 ish (my apartment oven is a little off)

If you want to be super awesome when they are almost done take off the tinfoil, add more shredded cheese and let it cook uncovered so you get this yummy bubbly crust on top!


Let cool a little while before eating or you will burn your mouth.