Weeknight Peppers

Here’s one of our favorite stand-by dinners: Stuffed Bell Peppers. With the price of bell peppers rising (along with most other grocery items) they have become more of a special dinner, so I was extremely excited to see them on sale this week. You can use green bell peppers, but the red, orange, and yellow have a slightly sweeter flavor that I enjoy, and many times they seem bigger than the green ones. It’s pretty much whatever you prefer.

I did originally look at recipes, but after getting a general idea of what we wanted, the following is the “recipe” Mike and I more or less created to suit our tastes.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

4 large bell peppers

1 (7-ounce) package Zatarain’s Black Beans and Rice mix

1 (11-ounce) can corn

1 cup (about) shredded Cheddar cheese

4 slices white American cheese

Salsa

Cut off the tops of the bell peppers; discard the seeds and membranes. Chop the tasty part of the tops (not the stems), if desired. Boil the peppers for about 5 minutes or until softened; drain and let cool.

Prepare the Zatarain’s according to the package directions, adding the chopped pepper tops with the rice mix. Add the corn and shredded cheese and mix until the cheese melts.
Arrange the peppers in a baking dish, fitting them together snugly so they won’t fall over. Spoon the rice mixture into the peppers. Top each with a slice of white American and bake at 350 degrees until heated through the cheese on top melts. You may broil for 1 or 2 minutes to brown the cheese, if desired. Serve with salsa, if desired.

Serves 4

Note: This varies slightly every time we make it. If we don’t want a vegetarian meal, we sometimes add browned ground beef or turkey. For cheese, we use whatever is in the fridge (we always have cheese of some sort). The cheeses I listed above just happen to be our favorite for this.

Photo to come soon.