Mom's Stuffed Bell Peppers

Total Time: 50 mins Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• 6 large bell peppers
• 1 1/2 lbs extra lean ground beef
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon sweet basil
• 16 ounces tomato sauce
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup rice
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Recipe

• 1 cut tops off bell peppers, making a bell pepper "bowl".
• 2 remove seeds and membrane, rinsing well under cold water.
• 3 par-boil peppers for approximately 5 minutes.
• 4 remove peppers from boiling water and place in a 9 x 13 baking dish.
• 5 brown ground beef and drain any excess fat.
• 6 add chopped onion to ground beef, stirring every few minutes.
• 7 meanwhile, make rice by boiling the cup of water and butter, adding rice and simmering until rice is cooked, as you would normally make steamed rice.
• 8 while rice is cooking, mix tomato sauce, sugar and basil together in a seperate bowl.
• 9 when rice is done, add to meat and onion mixture.
• 10 add half of the sauce and half of the cheddar cheese to meat mixture, stirring all together.
• 11 spoon meat mixture into each bell pepper; if you have any left over you can spoon some around the peppers as well.
• 12 spoon remaining sauce mixture over each bell pepper and top with remaining cheese.
• 13 bake at 350 for approx 20 minutes.
• 14 note: although this sounds like a lot of steps to go through, this is one of those recipes where you can be doing more than one thing at a time.
• 15 i usually start my water to boil for the par-boiling of the peppers at the same time i'm browing the ground beef and chopping my onion, and cleaning the bell peppers.
• 16 i am also guilty of making more sauce than needed, and adding more cheese than necessary. i really don't think you can screw this up -- it's just a matter of personal taste, so feel free to play with the amounts.