Inside-Out Stuffed Peppers

Soooo, this one is for the folks who, on a regular basis, like to tease me about our "fancy", "gourmet" meals.  Ahem, yeah, you know who you are.

I will agree that, yes, most weeks I cook every night.  The majority of the time, the dinner I put on the table is edible.  And in a lot of cases, pretty darn good.  Gourmet it is not.

I love food.  I love to eat food, look at food, smell food, talk about food, take pictures of food, make food, and feed people food.  Plus, planning meals and eating at home is waaaaay less expensive than eating out or running to the grocery store on a whim.  Trust me, before kids, that's how I did it too.  On my way home from work I'd be like, mmmm, steak.  Or, mmmmm, pasta.  And every once in awhile, I'll still get a hankerin' for something and we'll walk over to the store for the ingredients.  But it's just so much easier, for me, to plan ahead and not have to think about what I'm gonna make for dinner.  I usually have five or six things to choose from, plus back ups like grilled cheese and tomato soup or an easy pasta.

And yes, there are nights when all I want to do is "phone a friend" for our meal, aka, call The Dad and nonchalantly suggest he bring something home, rather than step foot in the kitchen.  But once we're all sitting down to eat, it's soooo much better than some crap from drive-thru that sits in your gut for two days.  Although, I can tear up a Big Mac, (or two), like it's my job.  And two nights ago, all I wanted was a crunch wrap supreme from Taco Bell.  I couldn't stop thinking about it.  If I was single and childless, I would have gotten in the car.  I ate a bagel and chocolate chip cookies instead.  Everyone's tummies were still on the mend, and all they wanted was fruit for dinner.

Anyyyyyway, after all that blabbing, I have a recipe for you.  And it is the farthest thing from gourmet.  I used to make this all the time in my early 20's.  Then, I think I was off ground meat for awhile and I just hadn't made it since.  Until now.  Dun dun dun duuuun.

The recipe calls for ground beef, which is how I always made it, but I decided to switch it up and use turkey this time.  My food tastes have changed over the years, but this was still as good as I remembered it. 

Here's the recipe with my notes:

Inside-Out Stuffed Peppers

1 lb ground beef (or turkey)
1/2 C chopped onion
1 16-oz can stewed tomatoes, cut up (fresh are good too)
1 large green bell pepper, chopped (I've always used two)
1/2 C uncooked long grain rice
1/2 C water
2 tsp worcestershire
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 C shredded cheddar cheese (I threw on some pepper jack this time as well)

In a skillet, brown meat and drain.  (I cooked the onions with the meat for The Dad's sake and I also threw in a few cloves of minced garlic.)
Add the remaining ingredients, except for the cheese, and stir to combine.
Transfer to a greased 2-quart baking dish.  Cover and bake at 350 for 1 hour, or until rice is tender.  (I gave mine a stir halfway through to make sure all the rice was gettin' some liquid.)
Uncover and sprinkle cheese on top.  Return to oven until cheese melts, about 5 minutes more.

I'd say you could call it a casserole.  

Gasp.

 Here's dinner:

We had a salad, with ICEBURG lettuce (it doesn't get less fancy than that) and bread.

Here's dinner on my plate:

The Dad's workin' overtime tonight, so I'm thinkin' a gourmet frozen pizza is soundin' pretty good for dinner.