Here’s the recipe I promised on the radio show tonight!

Its the garden’s last hurrah and peppers are coming in hand over fist. One thing you can do is to dice and freeze them, or dehydrate them. There’s just so much diced peppers I can use though so I make stuffed peppers and freeze them for easy meals.

Here’s my method and recipe:

You’ll need
15 green bell peppers
2 cups uncooked long grain rice
6 pounds ground chuck
2 tablespoons ground cumin
4 tablespoons oregano
1 large yellow onion, dices
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 – 46 ounce can tomato juice
3 jars – 16 ounces each chunky salsa
12 ounces grated cheddar cheese
5 – 9×12 inch pans (use disposable foil pans)

You can use home canned salsa and tomato juice if you prefer, I do!

Cut peppers in half lengthwise. Remove the stems and all seeds as well as any white ribs.

Bring a large soup pot full of water to a boil. Plunge peppers into the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.

Remove peppers from water and drain well.

Spray each foil pan very lightly with vegetable spray.
Place 6 pepper halves in each of the 5 foil pans.

In a large bowl combine rice, ground chuck, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.Toss the mixture but don’t mash it and compress the beef.

Fill each pepper half with the ground beef mixture, mounding it up slightly and dividing it pretty evenly between all the pepper halves.

Pour 1 – 1/8 cups tomato juice into each pan around the stuffed pepper halves.
Spoon salsa over each stuffed pepper half, dividing it evenly between all the pepper halves.

Sprinkle with cheese.
cover the foil pans with foil and seal tightly, label and freeze.

To bake one pan immediately:
Heat oven to 350*F. Bake covered peppers about 45 minutes until tendre and meat is cooked through.

To freeze:
Wrap each pan o’peppers in two layers of foil. Label and freeze. To serve, thaw in refrigerator over night. Remove one layer of foil. Bake at 350*F for 45 minutes til hot and bubble and meat is cooked through.
Each pan makes 4 – 6 servings