Italian Stuffed Bell Peppers Plus A Meatloaf Food

ITALIAN STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

Steps:

• In a large bowl mix together the cooked rice and the raw ground beef.
• Add the egg, salt, pepper, and garlic powder to your taste, and mix very well.(I find it's best to mix it with your hands like meatloaf.).
• Prepare the peppers by cutting them in half from top to bottom like an apple, so you have two identical halves. Take off the stem and remove the seeds.
• Fill the pepper halves equally with the rice mixture. Set them down in a 13x9" baking pan that you have put a little of the sauce on the bottom of first.
• Generously spoon sauce over the stuffed top of each pepper and then pour the remaining sauce around the peppers in the pan.
• Sprinkle the top with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
• Bake at 350°F until the peppers are very soft and tender when tested with a knife.(depending on your oven maybe an hour or so; mine takes longer because my oven is ancient:).
• Spoon the sauce over the peppers at least three or four times while they are cooking. The sauce will thicken slightly as you bake the peppers and get delicious and rich.
• Enjoy!

ITALIAN STUFFED MEATLOAF

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Combine in large bowl: sirloin/turkey, egg, tomato juice, salt and pepper, garlic, oregano, onion.
• Put 1/2 mixture in 9x5x3 loaf pan coated with cooking spray. (I could only find 11x5x3 sorry!).
• Layer on Cheese, Spinach, Peppers.
• Cover with remaining meat mixture.
• Bake for 1 hr, until meatloaf is done.
• cool to room temp, wrap, freeze up to 3 months.
• remove from freezer, thaw.
• bake at 350 degrees for abt 20-30 min until heated through.
• OR, slice and re heat in microwave.
• can top with a bit of spaghetti sauce if desired.
• comes with frozen italian green beans and/or ww pasta :).

GRANDMOM LENA'S STUFFED ITALIAN FRYING PEPPERS

Steps:

• wash and thoroughly dry peppers and cut the tops off. Remove seeds and white veins inside, keeping the body of the pepper whole.
• Break the bread into pieces of varying size but nothing more than about a half inch square.
• Remove the tomatoes from the can and squish into the bread breaking into pices (you may not have to use all the tomatoes in the can... go by how it looks and feels if it's too dry add some of the juice from the can.) The mixture should be moist but not very wet.
• Stir in the rest of the ingredients and incorporate thoroughly.
• Stuff the bread mixture into the hollow peppers and level off on the top. (pack them fairly tightly but don't jam or force the stuffing into the pepper).
• Heat about ½ inch of oil in a deep frying pan on about medium high (I like to use half olive oil, half vegetable oil for the flavor).
• Fry the stuffed peppers until the skin begins to turn golden brown, the pepper becomes soft and the filling is heated through.
• Remove from oil and sprinkle with a little salt, if desired.
• Can be served hot, warm or right out of the refrigerator! (p.s omit the anchovy and this is a nice vegetarian (not vegan) dish).

MEAT LOAF-STUFFED PEPPERS

Steps:

• Remove tops and seeds from peppers. Immerse in boiling water for 3 minutes; drain. Pour 1 cup of spaghetti sauce into a shallow baking dish; set aside. , In a saucepan, combine meat loaf, rice, onion, chopped green pepper and remaining spaghetti sauce. Cook and stir over medium-high heat for 5-10 minutes or until heated through. Stuff each pepper with meat loaf mixture; place on sauce in baking dish. , Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 15-20 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with the cheese and let stand until melted.