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>>When I was a kid, I didn't like stuffed peppers.

I thought they were terrible food, and why would my mother give me those?

Well, today as an adult, I absolutely adore them and they're one way that I can use up all of my leftover garden produce, stuff those peppers, have them all winter long.

So today on "Tassie's Table," we'll be making some stuffed peppers.

So we're gonna get started with some ground beef in our bowl.

And I have about a pound of ground beef.

Now you can use ground chicken, turkey, you can use a meat substitute if you'd like, and I'm going to add some herbs to that.

First of all, a little bit of parsley, I've got some basil and some oregano, those triune of Italian flavors.

And then I wanna put in just a little bit of red pepper flake.

And the last thing I'm going to add is a little bit of garlic salt.

I'm not putting in salt anywhere else here, and I want the flavor of garlic so I thought instead of using garlic powder, I'm gonna use a little garlic salt in there.

Now, the other thing that I want to add is a little bit of cooked rice.

Now, this is about a half to three-quarters cup cooked rice.

You're gonna use anywhere between a half cup and a cup of cooked rice per pound of beef.

So I had this leftover in my refrigerator, I thought, "Well, let's use that."

It serves as our binding agent in this meat and it will allow me to actually extend the meat a little bit so it stretches that dollar.

So we want to just mix this a little bit, get that rice going in the meat, and then let's add an egg.

I have one large egg.

Remember, if your recipe calls for an egg, that means a large egg.

It doesn't mean a medium or an extra large.

All recipes are designed so that one egg equals one large egg.

Now, let's just break that yolk a little bit as it goes in.

(glass clinking) And I just want to mix this really well.

That egg will serve as a little moisture ingredient.

If you were using breadcrumbs, you definitely need the egg.

But I think even using the rice, you want that egg to be a little moisturizing in your meat.

It cooks so much better when it's moist.

All right, that looks pretty good.

Now, I have some pepper halves here that I've just cored and I took out the ribs and took out the seeds.

So I just want to take my meat and pack it in just a little bit over the top so it's almost like a meatball, and then let's set them in a nice oven pan.

Now, the great thing about this is if you have a lot of peppers, you can stuff lots of peppers.

If you have too few peppers for a batch of this, you can also make the meatball and just put the meatball right into the sauce as we bake.

So let's just stuff a few more here.

I usually can stuff, oh, four to six peppers.

It, of course, will just depend on the size of your pepper.

So don't be intimidated, play with it, see what kind of thing you like.

Again, you can use chicken, you can use turkey, all sorts of things go in stuffed peppers.

And if you don't have rice, you can use oatmeal or breadcrumbs, pretty much anything.

All right, so we've got all those stuffed, and now I'm going to add one quart, four cups of juice.

This is tomato juice, but you can also use a vegetable juice with lots of different flavors mixed in.

I just happened to have tomato juice.

And this is perfect for this recipe.

So we're just going to pour that over top, put the lid on it, put it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half.

The last 15 minutes, I like to pop that lid off and let it brown just a little bit before I serve them.

So let's see how we did.

Oh my goodness, they look so good.

So I'm gonna just grab one of these peppers, put it in a bowl.

And I want to get some of this lovely juice from the bottom, that tomato juice that now is flavored with all of that wonderful stuff from the peppers.

Play on words there.

Serve this with a little salad, it makes just a lovely meal, maybe even a nice slice of French or Italian bread.

Now, I like to once in a while just sprinkle mine with a little bit of cheese, a little Parmesan.

This is optional, but it's just wonderful.

And sometimes I'll even take the lid off, put the cheese on top and then give it a nice little brown in the oven, it's beautiful.

And then let's just set it off to the side here, a nice little basil leaf to make it beautiful for presentation.

I hope you enjoyed today's recipe for stuffed peppers.

If you liked this one, join me again right here on "Tassie's Table."