Stuffed Italian Peppers

These stuffed peppers are my husband’s favorite. This is his mother’s recipe and since today is his birthday, I am featuring it and our daughter is home making it for his birthday dinner tonight.  Happy Birthday Jim!

My husband’s mother always used Italian peppers. If you have never used Italian peppers for stuffed peppers, you are in for a treat. Italian peppers get almost translucent when cooked this way and the flavor of the pepper gets very intense. You will find it hard to go back to a stuffed bell pepper after you have tasted these.

Stuffed Peppers are great to be prepared while “running around town” because they can be prepared in sections. You can prepare the filling and save it for stuffing later and you can cook the peppers early since they are easy to reheat. Add some pasta and sauce and you have a meal.

Ingredients

3 lbs. hamburg

2 eggs

2 cups seasoned bread crumbs

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 medium onions – chopped or 1 10oz. bag of frozen, chopped onions

2 ½ tbsp dried oregano

2 ½ tbsp dried basil

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp pepper

4 cloves of garlic – minced or 2 tbsp of minced garlic in the jar

8 oz. tomato sauce

14 Italian peppers

Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients but the peppers. I like to use my Kitchen Aid Mixer to mix this, but spoons and/or hands work just as well. Mix well and then set aside.

Rinse the peppers. Cut off the end that has the stem and remove all seeds. Now fill the peppers with the hamburg mixture; stuff the peppers but be careful not to break the pepper, if you do, don’t worry about it.  Place peppers on a cookie sheet. Pour a little olive oil into a cup and using a pastry brush, brush the peppers with a little bit of oil; you don’t need much.

Bake for 25 minutes then turn over each pepper.  Bake another 15 minutes or until the peppers are slightly brown and almost translucent.

These peppers reheat in the microwave very well. Just cut in half lengthwise and microwave for 1 minute on high. These peppers also freeze well, so make extra. Wrap each pepper individually in plastic food wrap and then put into a freezer bag.