Since this dish involved some cooking and it was a hot day I made the stuffed pepper and tomato sauce in the morning and merely reheated everything in the microwave for dinner.

I like to make my own tomato sauce since I can control what goes in it. It is basically onions, garlic, oregano, a shake of red pepper flakes, a bit of tomato paste, and a large can of whole or diced tomatoes. Of course I add some salt and maybe a quarter teaspoon of sugar. The sauce cooks for 1/2 hour.

The stuffing is a combination of rice, ground beef that has been browned along with onions and garlic, and some of the tomato sauce. For 6 half peppers I used 1 cup of cooked rice, 4 oz. of ground beef, and a cup or so of sauce. I halved the peppers and microwaved them until they softened.

The stuffing goes into the softened peppers which are waiting in a square glass baking dish. I add a little more of the sauce on top of each pepper and bake them in a 350F oven, covered, for 25 minutes and then uncovered for another 10 minutes. The broccoli was sautéed in a little oil and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese right before it was time to eat.

When it was dinner time what a delight it was to have made almost everything in advance! Although I only used 4 oz. of meat the peppers had a nice meaty flavor. There were no leftovers!