Pizzeria Peppers

With all the bounty from our garden, I'm constantly looking for recipes that will use our fresh vegetables.  I found one recently that was so easy and so delicious that I wanted to share it with you.  Everyone in my family loved it, even Ben who usually doesn't like bell peppers.  I found the recipe at www.cookinglight.com.

I doubled the recipe below for the four of us, and used about eight small peppers instead of four large ones.  Homegrown peppers are about half the size of the mutant ones from the grocery store.  We did have three peppers left over, which were great for lunch the next day.  The recipe calls for green peppers but we used green and red and they were equally awesome.

Pizzeria Peppers

Ingredients

2 large green bell peppers (about 1 pound)

1/2 pound Italian sausage (no casings, or remove from casings)

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup sliced mushrooms

1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons sliced green olives (I left these out, but would use black olives next time)

1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce

1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut tops off bell peppers, discard tops, seeds & membranes.  Cook peppers in boiling water 5 minutes, drain and set aside.

Brown sausage, onion and garlic in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat, stirring to crumble sausage.  Add mushrooms, saute 2 minutes or until tender.  Stir in Parmesan cheese, olives, Italian seasoning, salt and tomato sauce, cook 4 minutes, stirring frequently.

Divide sausage mixture evenly between peppers, and top with mozzarella cheese.  Place stuffed peppers in an 8-inch square baking dish; bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. 

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I served this dish with a side salad of spinach, fresh homegrown heirloom tomatoes, quartered artichoke hearts, chopped mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Delicious!