Incredible Stuffed Bell Pepper Recipe

• 4 bell peppers (red, yellow, orange—I’m not a fan of green bell peppers)
• 3/4-1 lb ground meat—mixed between ground beef, pork sausage, chorizo
• 2/3 cup chopped onion
• 2/3 cup chopped bell pepper (use the tops)
• 2/3 cup chopped celery
• 1 chopped jalapeno pepper
• 1 cup corn bread crumbled up
• ½ cup (appx) shredded cheese

Instructions

• First get out a 9 x 9 baking pan and a medium skillet. Also get out your cutting board and knife a small mixing bowl and a medium mixing bowl. We’re going to do the “mise en place” first (that’s fancy talk for the prep work).
• Cut the tops off the bell peppers (just go far enough down from the top so you can make a level slice of the pepper) and then remove the seeds and ribs from inside.
• If the peppers don’t stand up straight, take your knife and cut just a bit off the bottom of the “long side” of the pepper so it stands up nicely (you’ll only need to take about 1/8” off to do this).
• Grease the bottom of your baking pan (I use a bit of margarine dabbed on a paper napkin) and put the peppers in the pan.
• (Some recipes say to parboil or blanch the peppers before putting them in the oven and some recipes don’t. I just cut ‘em, filled ‘em and baked ‘em. They came out fine—not soggy, not crisp but with just a little “tooth” left in them. Just the way I like ‘em).
• Use the tops for the bell pepper you’ll put into your mix. Dice the vegetables (my definition of dicing is about ¼ inch pieces) and put them in the small mixing bowl. If you’re using a jalapeno and aren’t used to working with them, cut it in half lengthwise and remove the ribs and seeds. Then cut the jalapeno up. (I have learned the hard way to wash my hands with soap and water after cutting up any pepper with any heat).
• Next turn the stove burner to medium and put the meat into the skillet to brown. I just tossed it all in and mixed it all together while it was cooking. (I used about a half pound of 85% ground beef, about 1/3 lb. of breakfast sausage, about 3 oz. of chorizo and a singleton Italian sausage that had been hanging around in the freezer way too long. Use what you want or what you have. This is a home cooked dinner not “Top Chef”.
• If you want you can put it in a bowl and mix it together by hand before you put it on the stove to brown. When that’s done, move the meat to the medium bowl with a slotted spoon and then dump the veggies into the skillet using the left over fat from the meat to “sweat” the vegetables for about 5-6 minutes. When done, dump this into the bowl with the meat.
• Now’s a good time to turn the oven on to 375 to preheat.
• Now, add a couple of spices to this mixture. I used garlic with some dried thyme and cumin (we love the aroma of cumin and use it in almost everything). Because the meat I cooked had chorizo I didn’t add anything with heat and didn’t need any salt because of the seasoning in the breakfast sausage. TASTE it before you season it—then season it to taste.
• Remember, you can always add more seasoning. But once it’s in, you can’t take it out.
• Crumble up the cornbread and dump it in the bowl. Now just mix everything together. When mixed, take a spoon and fill each pepper to the top and tamp it down with the back of your spoon. I thought I made too much filling but found that I had just enough to go around.
• Slide the pan of filled peppers into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes at 375. Check it at about 25 minutes and if the top is starting to look done, slide the pan out of the oven and sprinkle shredded cheese over the tops of the peppers then put the pan back in the oven for a final 5 minutes to melt the cheese.