Stuffed Bell Pepper: New Approach

My home-town Taganrog is very international town: Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Asians, Caucasians, a lot of Greek people, and some Italians live there. We have streets named Garibaldi, Greek Street and Italian Lane. That's why many local meals have roots from Greek and Italian cuisine. Those recipes are widely used and every family will claim them as their own family recipes! This is why I cannot imagine my summer without a few "summer meals" that I will introduce to you here on my blog. Stuffed Bell Pepper will be number one!


All vegetables are in season now and quite cheap. Bell pepper that usually costs about $1.50 each is three for dollar now. So, I decided it is time to cook them!

Cut the tops off from the pepper and wash thorough.


In meantime, cook rice, rinse and set aside.

Now is my new approach. Usually for the meet part you add raw ground meet. I decided to add cooked meet with onions and mushrooms. I fried 1 onion with 1 cup of fresh minced mushrooms and 1 cup of raw ground pork (use beef if you like it better). You can make your recipe vegetarian: add fried onions and carrots instead of ground meet. It is great to the taste and low on calories.

For one bell pepper I measured about 1/2 of cup of cooked rice. So I measured 1 1/2 cup of rice for my three peppers and mixed rice with fried ground pork.


Now, tomato sauce. I think I posted recipe how to make it here about 3 times already. But here we go again: 1 onion and a couple of middle size carrots cut into small pieces.


Add 1 can of tomato sauce. Bring to boil tomato sauce and add 1 teaspoon of sugar, one bay leave and fresh ground pepper. Set apart.


Now, fill up the bell pepper with rice mixture. Press the stuffing down and make sure it is sitting tight.


A little trick: take the dish where you are going to cook your peppers (soup pot, middle size saucepan or deep frying pan) and just add one splash of tomato sauce to the bottom. This will prevent your peppers from burning and sticking to the bottom. Place bell peppers inside of the pot. They need to be standing, not laying down. In that case all stuffing will spill over. Then pour the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of standing bell peppers.

Minced garlic and fresh herbs like cilantro and parsley will give nice smell and taste.

Cover up the pot with lid and let simmer on middle heat for about 25-30 minutes. Rice and meet are already cooked. All we need is just make sure that bell pepper is soft and cooked. This meal is great warm or cool, with sour cream or without, as a side dish or main course. It is not very time-consuming, but delicious and new to the summer menu!