stuffed peppers

I've been wanting to try stuffed peppers for a while because I've never had them and every time I see a photo, I think they look delicious. Today, I finally got around to it and looked up a few different recipes and ended up with two - one for stuff peppers and one for Spanish rice - that I used for guidance and went from there.

So, here's what I ended up with:

Prepare the peppers
Cut open the tops and pull out the insides. Use a spoon to scrape any extras and seeds from the inside. Put the peppers in a large pan with water covering them. Bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes. Remove the peppers from the hot water and put into a bowl of ice cold water. Remove and drain (open side down) on paper towels.

Rice mixture
1 c. long grain white rice
1 c. spaghetti sauce
1 c. chicken broth
1/2 tsp. chili powder
Franks Red Hot sauce, to taste

Mix this all together, bring to a boil, and reduce to medium heat. Stir frequently until fully cooked - about 25 minutes? I wasn't good at keeping track of time.

Meat mixture
1 med. onion (diced)
1 jalapeno pepper (seeds removed, diced)
1/2 lb. Italian sausage
1/8 tsp. ground cumin
Salt to taste

Saute onion and jalapeno until translucent, then add Italian sausage. Sprinkle the cumin over the mixture. Cook until the meat is browned and no longer pink. 

Bring it all together
Pour the meat mixture into the cooked rice mixture and mix well. Fill the peppers half way with this mixture, then add a light layer of Mexican cheese (or mozzarella or cheddar would be good). Fill the rest of the pepper, all the way to the top, with the mixture and top with a little more cheese.  Put the peppers on a baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Things you should know

• You'll want the rice to be cooked how you would normally eat it before you bake it, because it didn't seem to get softer once in the oven. I had it almost done, but not quite, because I thought it would cook up more. It didn't.
• I used a 1/2 lb. of Italian sausage -- next time I would maybe use a full pound if I want it a little meatier. 
• The Italian sausage I used was a half/half mixture of mild kind and hot kind. It was a good mix for us. 
• You could probably use ground beef or turkey and spice it up yourself instead of using the Italian sausage. 
• We only made two peppers (medium-sized) and there's a bunch of leftover mixture. I'd guess you could make 5-6 medium peppers with this amount of mixture. We're going to use the leftover either as burritos or stuffing some poblano peppers tomorrow.

It sounds like a lot of work, but it was really good! And this is what it looks like:

In my opinion, it was well worth the effort - at least for us, because we'll get another meal or two out of the mixture. I'd guess we'll get two more poblanos and a couple of smaller burritos over the next couple of days, yet.

Oh, and the weird looking brown stuff on the plate? Refried beans. We weren't sure what else to serve with it because it already has meat, veggies, and rice in it. :)

Have you made stuffed peppers? How do you do it?