Stuffed Peppers

Now that weather has turned cold, I like to assemble meals that bake in one casserole dish for an hour or more... like stuffed green peppers and zucchinis.

I use the same stuffing my mother used to put in the cabbage rolls she made weekly during the winter. I prefer to stuff peppers, as cabbage leaves have to be softened by dropping the cabbage into boiling water for a few minutes before the leaves are removed. So peppers are easier!

Having earned how to make the stuffing by watching my mother, I have no recipe... Just a vague sense of what to do...

So here it is - enough for about 5 green peppers!

Prepare the green peppers by washing them and removing the tops and seeds. Set them upright in a casserole dish while preparing the stuffing.

The stuffing: Chop an onion...














Toss it in a bowl with about 1/3 of a cup of uncooked rice and about half a pound of ground meat. Add ground pepper, garlic, dry parsley, and mix it up.














I prefer to use my hands and knead it like bread. Fill the peppers with the mixture.














Today, I have a little mixture left over - so I take several zucchinis out of the fridge, cut them in half, and scoop a little of the insides out, carving a little "canoe." After filling the "canoes" with the leftover hamburger mixture, I cover each "canoe" with the other half of the zucchini. Here they are in a glass baking dish, surrounded by leftover chopped onion and inner bits of zucchini.

In the Middle East, the zucchinis are carefully hollowed out with a special knife, and the inner part is thrown out, but I toss the inner part into the casserole dish, to cook in the sauce.














The stuffed vegetables need to cook in a liquid. I use canned tomatoes mixed with water - enough to cover the veggies. I also mix some chopped garlic in the tomato-water mixture. I pour enough liquid to reach about half way up the vegetables in the casserole, adding water if necessary. Then I sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on top.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (170 degrees Celsius) for about an hour.

The beauty of this dish is that it is very flexible - add a few more spices, if you want. Or cook a little longer if you're running late!














The meal will still taste good!