When we were shopping Monday, the idea of stuffed peppers came up.  We saw a couple of great peppers, nice flat bottoms so they would stand up…  Perfect peppers.

Well…  wouldn’t you know that the perfect peppers stood up perfectly in the ‘fridge, stood up perfectly in the pan, stood up perfectly in the oven, and refused to stand up once I took them out of the oven.  Standing up perfectly in the pan.  Falling over on the plate.

Go figure.

But standing up or falling over, they were pretty good.

Stuffed peppers are one of those dishes I never use a recipe for – and I don’t think I have ever made them remotely the same way twice. I’ve stuffed them with raw meat and uncooked rice, cooked meat and uncooked rice, raw meat and cooked rice, meat and breadcrumbs, chunked vegetables, with rice without rice, brown rice white rice, gound beef ground pork ground lamb, and various combinatiuons of the above.

They always seem to come out just fine, no matter what I do to them.

Tonight was a mixture of ground pork, ground beef, onion, and cooked rice.  And leftover pasta sauce and grated cheese.

Stuffed Peppers

• 2 bell peppers
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 lb ground beef
• 1/3 lb ground pork
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp sage
• 2 cups pasta sauce
• 1/2 cup shredded romano cheese
• salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.  Slice off top of bell pepper and remove seeds and membranes.

Saute onion until translucent.  Add beef and pork and cook through.  Add rice and mix well.  Add seasonings, 1/2 cup pasta sauce and about 1/4 cup grated cheese.  Mix well and stuff into peppers.

Put remaining 1 1/2 cups sauce in baking dish.  Add peppers and cover with foil.

Bake for 1 hour.

This is a “play-with-it” recipe.  Have fun.  Cut the peppers in half if they’re really big.  You’ll probably have better luck getting them to lie flat.  Put lots of cheese on top and stick them under the broiler to finish.

Go crazy!