Stuffed Bell Peppers

I had some ground beef left over from making meat loaf for my husband’s birthday and when I went to the store and found these beautiful peppers for a good price I got four in red, orange and yellow and thought they’d make beautiful stuffed bell peppers.

I learned how to make them years ago from my friend’s mother Mrs Marut, and have never forgotten how to do them without a recipe. It’s so basic. Fry some onion, then some ground beef and add some herbs (whatever you like) and tomato sauce. Remove from heat, add rice (I included corn to give it a crunch and color,) stuff the peppers and simmer them in tomato sauce. And there you have a hearty dinner. It always looks like it takes a lot of work, but it really doesn’t.

Stuffed peppers go really well with mashed potato but I didn’t have any potato. Instead I had bought fennel planning to add it to chicken soup but never used it. I thought a light fennel salad would go perfectly with the richness of meat and tomato. For my simple fennel salad, click here.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Four servings
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Stuffing
2 tablespoons oil
¾ cup chopped onion
¾ pound ground beef
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon thyme
¼ teaspoon marjoram
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 29-ounce can tomato sauce
½ cup cooked rice
½ cup sweet corn

4 bell peppers
1 cup water

Making the stuffing
Heat oil in a frying pan. Add onion and fry until softened. Add beef and fry until meat changes color. Add basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram and fry for another two minutes, Add tomato paste and about a ½ cup of the tomato sauce to the beef and continue to fry for about 5 minutes until beef is cooked.

Remove pan from heat. Add rice and corn and mix well. Set aside.

Preparing the peppers
Rinse peppers and wipe dry. Neatly slice off the top of the pepper, about half inch from top. Remove the seeds by slicing off the part holding the fruit to the seeds in the center.

To clear the seeds I usually turn the fruit upside down and tap the base to shake them out. Then slice the bumps at the bottom so that the pepper stands well and doesn’t topple over. (I cut one too deep and made a hole. Learning from my gardening potting experience, I simply patched the hole by placing the part I cut off into the pepper to cover the hole!)

Carefully clear out the seeds from the cap. Instead of holding the cap in my hand I placed the cap on the board to cut the seed off so I don’t slice too deeply and cut myself!

Blanch pepper in hot water. Remove from hot water and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

Place bell pepper on a plate and fill with beef stuffing.

Cooking the peppers
Add remaining tomato sauce and water to a 4-quart pot. Carefully place peppers into sauce. Bring to a boil and when boiling, reduce heat to low and simmer covered for about 15 minutes.

Baste fillings with some tomato sauce and place the caps of the pepper into the pot. (I left them at the side because I kept the stems and they were too tall to fit over the bell peppers.)