After working all my life with five children and a husband who liked to eat but had no imagination for cooking I came up with necessary ways around tedious meal preps without skimping on taste or appeal.

This is one of those meals.

Ingredients:

• 6 sweet peppers (red, green, or yellow…or all or any combination thereof)
• 16 oz. tomato sauce (Italian style)
• 3 clove minced garlic
• 1 medium onion
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 lb package of mozzarella cheese cut into 1 inch squares
• Chinese cooked white rice
• 1 lb. chopped meat
• 2 eggs

I don’t know  about you but I don’t eat the Chinese white rice I get with my Chinese food order. I love fried rice so I usually order that. What can you do with the white rice? I began freezing it.  One day I was out of rice when I thought to make stuffed peppers, then I remembered my stash in the freezer. I defrosted it and mixed it with my chopped meat,  added two eggs, seasonings (oregano, basil, pepper, sauteed onions and garlic), four ounces of the canned tomato sauce, and a little parmesan cheese…blending well.  Wash and cut the peppers in half, lengthwise, and clean out the seeds then stuff them with the meat mixture. Put them in a glass casserole dish and press a chunk or two of mozzarella cheese into the middle of the meat and rice mixture. Finally, pour the rest of the tomato sauce over the top of them., cover with aluminum foil and cook in a preheated 350 degree oven for forty-five minutes.  Between prep and cook time this one dish meal is ready to eat with a red or white wine in under an hour.