Amanda's Stuffed Peppers

"Great recipe - It was an Italian twist on traditional stuffed peppers and a nice change from my usual "rice and beef" version. I used 1 & 1/2 lbs. of lean ground beef and italian style bread crumbs. I..." See more left out the mushrooms (personal preference for my husband). After cutting and cleaning the peppers I always boil them for about three minutes to get them a little soft so you don't end up with hard shells at the end of the cooking process. Instead of jarred spaghetti sauce, I used an old favorite "Best Marinara Sauce Yet" from this site and added it to the peppers before they went into the oven. I don't bother with cooking them with the tops. These came out so good. I served them with "Garlic Mashed Potatoes" from this site."

"Hubs and I SO enjoyed this! Like eating a big, delicious meatball in a sweet pepper! We're watching carbs where we can so I cut back on the bread crumbs a little. I found I was glad I did, carb watc..." See morehing or not. The full half cup of crumbs would have been a little too much filler for me. I cut back on the Parmesan cheese as well - a little goes a long way. I also found that, just as with meatballs, I had to moisten the mixture up a bit with a little milk. Rather than the Italian seasoning I used fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, fresh oregano and some dried basil, but I have no doubt the Italian seasoning would have been equally as good. I chose to use red, orange and yellow peppers both for their vibrant color as well as their more mellow, sweeter flavor. Everything worked well here, all ingredients perfectly suited to each other. Loved the addition of the mushrooms as well as the mozzarella. I halved the peppers lengthwise and, as I always do with stuffed peppers, blanched them for about three minutes before filling and baking them. Finally, rather than the jarred spaghetti sauce I used my tomato sauce I put up from my garden. If you use the jarred stuff, I'd recommend a simple marinara rather than something heavily seasoned. Normally I'd serve this with mashed potatoes or, considering the Italian slant in this recipe, pasta, but in keeping with our carb watching, I served it with some leftover "Whipped Butternut Squash," recipe also from this site. Excellent."

"Definitely a great rendition of the original as I am not a fan of rice. I did make a couple of changes and cooked the ground beef, onions & garlic first to avoid the chance of it not being done (& hel..." See moreped reduce the fat). I then added 1/4 c. italian seasoned bread crumbs & omitted the egg & italian seasoning. I also added the sauce to ground beef when I mixed it w/ the remaining ingredients. Cut the cooking time to 45 mins and it turned out awesome."