Stuffed Peppers, Easier Than I Had Guessed

Maybe it's because I didn't grow up seeing my mother make them, but I always thought that foods like stuffed peppers and stuffed cabbage were the foods of nightmare preparation.  When I was younger and more ambitious I did try stuffed cabbage, but as tasty as the results were, I decided that they weren't worth the work.  In my mind, and most restaurant menus, all the stuffed vegetables are in the same category, so it was only very recently I ever attempted stuffed peppers.  You must understand that I've been married forty years already and I don't buy "take-out."

Simply put, there 's a mystique concerning stuffed vegetables, like homemade blintzes.  
Too complicated!

I'm wrong; yes, I admit it.  Stuffed peppers, tomatoes and even squash if you have a grapefruit spoon are amazingly easy to make.

Mix your chopped meat as if you're making meatloaf. 

• For a pound or half a kilo of meat:
• Dice an onion, add an egg and a generous squeeze of ketchup or tomato paste and garlic
• If you're stuffing tomato or squash, add whatever you've had to take out when emptying them

• Open up the vegetables you're stuffing and put them in your baking dish
• Stuff 'em, you'll be amazed at how far a bit of chopped meat goes

• Cover with foil and bake

Yes, it's that easy and it looks so impressive!

PS You can stretch the meat with starchy additives like rice etc.  You can enrich it with parsley, oregano, whatever you like.