Inside Out Stuffed Bell Peppers

My husbands HATES (not even an understatement) shepherd's pie. Something about his childhood and Stevie's (his dad) cooking. :-)

I on the other hand love it. I loved it growing up and my dad and I always made (especially when mom was on cooking strike).  I always thought it was a great go to meal, brown the meat, open a can of corn and mix up some instant potatoes.

Well...as I got older (no I won't tell you my age) I wanted a way to implement the delicious summer fresh vegetables that most of us get (the usual zucchini, squash, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc). I also wanted to attempt to take out the potatoes.

So one night here is what I came up with...

There are a few ladies at work that had gardens that were growing too many vegetables (tough problem huh?) While I was making this recipe Sprouts also had there bell peppers 3 for $1. Holy cow! We LOVE bell peppers...raw, stir fry, omelettes, stuffed, etc.

Well I also had a zucchini that needed to be eaten before it went rotten.  I chopped it up thinking what am I going to do with this. It was a medium size. I pulled a pound of ground beef, browned it up. Then I added 1 red and 1 green bell pepper.

Off subject...did you know that bell peppers (red mostly) have more vitamin c than an orange? I read it online somewhere and we know if you see it online it MUST be true, right? (wink)

OK, bad to the recipe...here is a list of what I add

1 pound lean ground beef-browned
1 medium zucchini
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
half a medium yellow onion (although I didn't add it in the first time)
salt and pepper to taste
rice-white or brown--enough servings for the number of people serving
1 bunch of asparagus
sauce found in this recipe from my blog

Along with the bell peppers that week at Sprouts, the asparagus was also AMAZINGLY priced. Needless to say I think for about a month we had asparagus our a vegetable with dinner. Good thing my boys finally started liking it as long as they had the sauce to put over it. Such an easy sauce too, so make sure you check out that recipe that I linked as well.

Moving on...this is a really rough recipe. After your meat is browned, dump all the remaining chopped veggies (except the asparagus) and let them mingled together with the meat until they are tender. While these saute sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste.

Get your asparagus boiling in some water with a little sprinkle of salt. Also get your water boiling now for your rice. I just used instant rice. It's easy. Feel free to use whatever rice you want.

 

Also, get the asparagus sauce mixing and ready to go...

 

I don't do tomatoes very well...so I just opened a can of tomato sauce to put on top of the mixture. If you love tomatoes or want this to have more of a fresher taste, I would definitely place some cherry tomatoes or just some chopped tomatoes on top. (I am sure my tomato loving husband would have preferred that).

Here is the recipe plated. It was a nice and refreshing and light summer meal. And what another great way to use zucchini. 

 

My kids loved it. We actually didn't have my oldest son the first night I made it. So when he came home, my two youngest told Ashton (my oldest) about the recipe and Ashton begged I make it. He had seconds and thirds! He loved it! I also took some to work a few times and I am ALWAYS questioned about what I am warming up because they love the smell. It reheats very well for lunch. It's a great refreshing meal for lunch or dinner. And very fast to make. 

As always I hope you enjoyed this as much as we did...and as always...happy cooking!

~Cristina