Stuffed Pepper Recipe

Today I have a food recipe for you. :) The food recipe is quickly becoming a popular staple in our household, so I thought I would share it with you.

Stuffed Pepper Recipe

I found a yummy and quick(!) stuffed pepper recipe while reading Mama Laughlin's blog, that actually looked good to me. I decided to try it out with a couple of changes, and have since made it several times. It's super quick (especially if you make the rice in advance), and even the hubby likes it (after lots of convincing to try it :) ). Here's how I made it:

Stuffed Pepper Recipe:

Makes about 8 peppers

1 lb lean ground beef

1-2 cups cooked homemade spanish rice (recipe to come later this week :), but could substitute any recipe, or boxed/frozen version you like)

1/4-1/2 cup chopped bell peppers

1/4 cup low fat sour cream (just enough to get everything to stick together, could substitute for plain low fat greek yogurt)

1/2 cup low fat mexican blend cheese

8 Bell Peppers (any color you like, I normally just buy a couple packages of the tri-colored peppers because the hubs likes the red peppers and I like the yellow and orange ones. I use the extra pepper and the tops for the copped bell pepper)

I start by turning the oven on to 350 and browning the ground beef with about 1 to 1 1/2 tbls of taco seasoning. While the ground beef is browning I remove the tops and inards of the peppers, reserving the tops to add to the filling. I start a pot of boiling water and boil the pepers for 3 to 5 minutes, just until they start to soften. I then pull the peppers out and let them cool in the baking dish. I chop the tops and remaining peppers into bite size pieces and add them to the ground beef.

At this point I normally get out a large bowl and dump in the rice, sour cream, 1/4-1/3 cup of the shredded cheese (approximated to how cheesy I want the filling) and ground beef/pepper mixture. I just stir it all together until everything looks like it's evenly mixed and holding together, then I fill the cooked peppers with the filling and top with the remaining shredded cheese.

You can then put the baking dish of peppers in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown.

This has become a new staple in our house. The last couple times I've decided that I'm too lazy for all the work with the peppers though and have just made the filling into a casserole with some extra chopped peppers. We also tried a variation with shredded chicken and left-over black beans, that was really good. The ground beef is still my favorite, but the black beans may have to make their way into our regular recipe. :)