Stuffed Peppers

So I had two beautiful peppers from my mothers garden, and since I had yet to stuff a pepper I began my search for a stuffed pepper recipe. Much to my chagrin most of the recipes were for 5 or 6 peppers, so I took the best parts of the recipes and made some educated guesses and this is what I came up with. I was super starving so I may have eaten both peppers for dinner tonight, but this mixture made enough stuffing to make one or two more peppers. I am going to freeze the hamburger mixture and then thaw it for stuffing next time I want stuffed peppers. Happy stuffing!

1/2 pound of hamburger

2-4 peppers (these can be any color of the rainbow, but of the bell variety)
1 small onion or half of a large onion

1/2 cup of brown rice (I used Uncle Bens quick rice and used the time indicated on the box. If you use a different rice you may need to adjust the time it is cooked)
2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of water

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese (and more to put on top of the peppers)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Boil a pot of water (I should have added more). Blanch the peppers in the boiling water for five minutes. You may need to hold them down with a spoon. Then cooling them off using cold water. I just ran these under the faucet for a minute or two then placed them in the pan for baking. I used a small loaf pan for baking mine because I only made two and they fit better in that than in other pans.

Brown the hamburger and drain.

Add the onions and garlic to the hamburger when it is almost done.

Stir this together and cook onions until they are soft and you can smell the garlic cooking. Add salt and pepper, stewed tomatoes, rice and a water to the hamburger mixture. Place a lid on the pan and let the rice cook for 10-12 minutes. The rice should absorb all the liquid.

When the rice mixture is done cooking stir in the 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese.

Stuff the peppers and top them with more cheese. Cook the peppers for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees. The Parmesan cheese on top will get pretty hard, so you could also wait to top your peppers until they have about 15 minutes left in the oven.