The Finding Harmony Recipe challenge: Post a stuffed pepper recipe I’ll like

How do you make stuffed green peppers? Are stuffed peppers one of those dishes that people either hate or love? Like liver?

I haven’t decided.

But we had a green pepper bonanza this year down on the Davis farm—after two years of barely squeaking out a crop of three or four peppers. Period. I kid you not. Out of our usual six plants. Something was wrong.

So we doubled our planting—tried 12 plants of two different varieties, (shame on me for not writing the types down), and asked the two greenhouses we bought them from what they would do to get a better yield. BOTH of them, conservative Mennonite women (which is irrelevant but interesting, and they likely wouldn’t lie) recommended using Epsom salt diluted at the rate of one tablespoon per gallon of water, applied to the plants about three times in monthly intervals during the early growing season. Said our garden likely lacked lime. So we tried it.

Best. Yield. Ever. And I wouldn’t lie. My husband has taken a pepper almost every day in his lunch for the last 3-4 months. We love them raw and ate them almost every night for dinner. We’ve given scores away. There are probably 50-75 tiny ones out there right now that will not develop because of frost.

I don’t really can or freeze them (except for a bag or two of chopped pepper to use in a few dishes) but my really dirty secret is this: I’m not a big fan of dishes such as stuffed green peppers. I cannot lie.

But I needed a dish for our church’s homecoming last weekend and I know that many people are big fans so I did some research and found this recipe.

There was a huge line for our homecoming potluck and by the time I went through the line, the 12 peppers were all gone except for a few dribbles in the pan. I didn’t cry.

Here is how I adapted a recipe from AllRecipes.com for a large dish to serve 12:

12 peppers
Salt to taste
2 lb. ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic clove or garlic powder, to your taste
1 quart or 15 oz. can of tomatoes
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup rice
1 cup water
2 cups cheddar cheese
1 can tomato soup

Prepare green peppers by slicing off top, removing insides and seeds. If bottoms are uneven, slice them just enough that green pepper shells will sit up in pan, a neat trick I learned over here.

Bring salted water to boil; cook peppers for 5 minutes. Lightly sprinkle salt inside each pepper; set aside in 13 by 9 inch greased baking dish.
Sauté beef, onion, chopped garlic or powder. Drain fat. Add salt and pepper.
Stir in tomatoes, uncooked rice, water, and Worcestershire sauce.

Cover and simmer until rice is tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from hear. Stir in part of cheese, reserving some to sprinkle on top of stuffed peppers.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stuff each pepper, using ice cream scoop or spoon. Place in baking dish. In separate bowl, combine tomato soup with about ½ can of water and stir until “soup” is gravy consistency. Pour over peppers, making sure some gets down into each pepper. It is okay to have excess spill over to bottom of baking dish. Cover tops with remaining cheese.

Bake 25-35 minutes until cheese is bubbly and browned.

Note: this recipe made too much rice/ground beef/onion/cheese/tomato stuffing; you will have more or less leftover depending on the size of peppers you use. Or reduce the amount of ground beef used. I sent a bonus one quart sized-casserole dish of leftover stuffing home with my daughter. They didn’t cry.

Bonus dish – about 1 quart sized dish of extra stuffing.

P.S. I had planned to eat a stuffed pepper, but didn’t get to. I loved the insides, but am less a fan of the baked pepper shells. Another daughter recommended I try a taco type filling next time. We’ll see!

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Do you have a favorite stuffed green pepper recipe? I’d love to hear about it. Here’s a challenge: post a recipe (or link) so good I’ll just have to try it. I’ll do a new blog post if you send me one you think I’ll like! I still have peppers to use up.
Give it your best shot. Convince me. Can you teach an old dog (me) a new like?

Or, respond to this:

What is a new dish you have made in the last year?

I also learned new dishes as a result of the cookbook/inspirational I wrote with food editors Jodi Nisly Hertzler and Carmen Wyse a couple years ago, Whatever Happened to Dinner? Check it out here.