Stuffed Peppers

Instructions

1. Wash your peppers and cut the lids off the peppers. I then trim the useable parts off the lids and dice those pepper parts into a fine dice. Clean the seeds and the white pith part out of the insides of the peppers.
2. In a bowl, add your meat, the rice, whisk the egg with milk, then add the celery salt, white and black pepper, and dried parsley to the meat. Mix well to combine, but do not over mix. Use your hands. If you over mix, the meat is tough. Set this aside.
3. Dice your onion then in a large skillet, add your butter oil oil, add your onions and peppers. Sauté until getting tender. Add your garlic powder, onion powder, nutmeg and oregano to the peppers and onions. Saute until soft. At the ned of cooking, add the Worcestershire and sauté a few minutes. Take out almost all of these peppers and onions and set aside in a bowl to cool. Leave a few tablespoons of this mix in the pan. You do not have to be super exaxt. You want some of the peppers left to make the sauce and the rest go in the meat mix when it cools.
4. Add your canned tomatoes to the skillet with the peppers and onions, then use the can to measure the water, then add two cans of the tomato soup. Whisk to make smooth, bring to a simmer and simmer 10 minutes. Stir occasionally.
5. Add your cooled peppers and onions to the meat mix. It does not have to be ice cold, just cool enough to mix in the meat by hand. Mix well until combined.
6. I use my covered roaster for this recipe. You can use any roaster and use foil as well. Add a couple of heaping spoons of the sauce to the bottom of the roaster. Then use a toothpick, poke some little holes around the outside of the pepper, poke all the way through. This creates air flow. I do about 8 holes around. Then stand the peppers up in the roaster. If you can't get the peppers to stay standing up, poke some toothpicks into the base to act as legs. Just be sure to remove them before eating. Add a tablespoon of the sauce to each pepper. Then add your meat filling. You want to fill the pepper, but you do not want to pack down the meat into these. This is so it cooks better, you want the pepper full, but you want some air flow in there. I mound the meat outside the top of the pepper.
7. Pour the rest of the sauce over the peppers. If I ever have meat left, I make little meatballs and add it to the sauce in the bottom of the pan.
8. Every oven and pan will bake up differently. I use the covered speckled roaster for this. IF you don't have one, cover with foil. For me using an electric oven, I bake for 90 minutes covered at 375 and then I take the lid off, spoon some sauce over the top and bake for 30 more minutes. If you like cheese, you can top with mozzarella at this point and finish baking. Then let rest for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. All ovens and pans bake differently, You should use a meat thermometer the first time. The done temp should be about 150 when you pull it out to rest cause it will keep cooking. They are done when the meat is firm. Like a meatloaf.
9. These reheat really well and you can freeze them cooked or uncooked. Thaw before baking if you freeze raw.
10. **while I have never done it, I am assuming you can put these in a crock pot and cook low and slow for 8 hours as well!