Stuffed Bell Peppers

We are growing bell peppers in our garden this year and wanted to find a special way to use them. These were delicious, my 8-year-old ate 3! This is one of those recipes that you can just "eyeball" as you go along, and is infinitely variable. I'll list out approximately what we did and estimates for amounts, but have fun with this! It's hard to go wrong!

INGREDIENTS:

5 bell peppers
1 medium onion
1 pound ground meat (we used buffalo)
grated cauliflower, optional
3-4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp cumin, or more!
Oregano or Mexican seasoning blend to taste (I use blends from Mountain Rose Herbs)
hot pepper, such as jalapeno (optional)
salt to taste
chopped cilantro
1/2 cup- 1 cup meat broth
1 tomato
cheese if you can have it to melt on top

METHOD:

To make the filling, heat some cooking oil or fat in a large skillet. Finely chop the onion and saute on low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the seasonings and crushed garlic cloves, and stir. If using hot or other peppers (such as Anaheim or Poblano for flavor) dice and add them now. Once these have cooked together, add the meat and saute until meat is just done. If you want "rice" in it too add some grated cauliflower about 5 minutes before the meat is done. Turn the heat off and mix in chopped cilantro, then taste and adjust the seasonings if needed.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To prepare the peppers, you can either cut them in half lengthwise if they are long and thin, or cut the tops out if they are short and round (in the picture you can see one of each). Remove the seeds.

Oil the bottom of an oven-proof pan with a lid that is big enough to fit all of the peppers in a single layer on the bottom. Carefully fill each pepper or pepper half with filling and place open side up in the pan.

In a small bowl, mix together the broth and the tomato, chopped. Season with salt and crushed garlic if desired. Pour this mixture around the peppers. Place the lid on the pan and bake for 30-45 minutes. Melt cheese onto them at the end if desired. Delicious with fresh salsa and guacamole.

VARIATION: use a variety of chopped veggies instead of the meat for veggie-stuffed peppers.