Lazy stuffed peppers

A mouth-watering meal that’s easy to prepare

This dish can be as complicated as you wish to make it. As for me, I like it easy! Complicated involves making your own sauce. We used to do that, and must admit it was delicious, but time consuming. We later found that if we doctor up a good ready-made sauce, it tastes great just the same. We also use a crock-pot now instead of the stove top. This avoids heating up the RV, and, more important, heating up the cook! So, for the easy version you will need the following:

• A crock-pot large enough to make your meal depending on the size of your family.
• One can (15 ounces) of spaghetti sauce; (4 cheeses, meat or mushrooms, etc.); any brand is OK. (For a large family, use two cans).
• One bay leaf.
• Spices to pep up the sauce. (I use a little Italian spice).
• One large green pepper for each person being served. This recipe is sized for two adults.
• One pound chopped lean beef.
• One cup rice, previously cooked.
• One small onion, if you can eat onions. (We cannot, anymore). Dice the onion.

Instructions

Open the can of sauce, shake in the Italian spice and pour a small amount onto the bottom of the crock-pot. Cut the top of each pepper off and reserve, then scoop out the seeds and discard. Separately, mix the meat, rice and onion in a bowl. Stuff the peppers with the rice, meat and onion mixture, pressing the mixture into the pepper with a spatula.

Now, place the previously cut top of the pepper back onto the stuffed pepper. Form the extra rice, meat and onion mixture into meatballs and place them around the peppers in the crock-pot. Insert the bay leaf into the crock-pot.

Add the remaining sauce around and over the peppers and meatballs. Whoa, not too much sauce! Cover the crock-pot, turn it on, go and play or read a book for six hours with the crock-pot set on high or for eight hours if you set the crock-pot on low. Serve with Italian bread, salad and a robust red wine. Heaven! Leftovers make great meatball sandwiches the next day, or break them up for Sloppy Joes or freeze them to use in a soup later on—your choice.

Editor’s Note: For those interested in the old-fashioned method for preparing the sauce, contact us a [email protected].