Maureen's Stuffed Peppers

Servings: 2

My vegetable intake when I was  young was very limited. I liked potatoes, but mostly as chips in a foil bag. Green onions and radishes were a treat I only shared with my Dad in his garden. Freshly plucked from the earth we would use our shirt sleeves or pants to wipe the dirt off them, add salt from the shaker we borrowed from the kitchen and crunch away. And of course, corn on the cob was always a favourite, preferably around a campfire. 

Oh! And marshmallows, not roasted, but burnt over an open fire. They count as vegetables don’t they? The two main ingredients in marshmallows are sugar and corn syrup. Sugar comes from the sugar cane plant and corn syrup from… corn stalks, of course. So how can marshmallows NOT be a vegetable?

I was well into my adult years before I gradually learned to enjoy more vegetables. I don’t know if the tastes of the vegetables changed over the years or if my tastes changed but something happened and I now enjoy many more vegetables. Except for brussel sprouts and asparagus. There have been no changes on either side of the fence on those.

Sweet Peppers are one of the vegetables that I missed out on for many years and today I can’t understand what the problem was. Could it be that peppers were just one of the many foods I had decided I didn’t like before I had even tried them?

Whatever the reason, when Maureen the receptionist at Kolmar told me about her recipe for stuffed peppers, they sounded intriguing and I decided to give them a shot. To this day, I can’t walk past the sweet peppers in the produce department of the grocery store without at least drooling just a little, just thinking about this recipe.

Stuff Required:

• ¾ lb ground beef, lean
  
• 1 can (10.75 oz) tomato soup
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp garlic salt
• 1 pkg (28 gm/2 tbsp) dry onion soup mix
• 2 large peppers, sweet
• ½ cup cheddar cheese grated

Do This:

1. Preheat oven to 325° F.
2. Cut top off peppers and remove seeds and stems.
3. Place peppers in boiling water and let cook for about 10 minutes.
4. While peppers are cooking, fry ground beef and onions.
5. Add 1 can of tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, garlic salt and onion soup mix and mix while continuing to cook.
6. Drain peppers, then stuff with meat mixture.
7. Sprinkle grated cheese on top. 
8. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Alternate Method
Instead of cutting the tops off the peppers you may slice them in half lengthwise, remove the seeds and stems and fill the mixture in each half before adding the cheese prior to baking.