Neighbor Chick's Turkey Stuffed Bell Peppers

 

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 50 minutes

Calories: 315 per bell pepper with beef, Less than 225 per bell pepper with turkey

Ingredients

• 6 bell peppers, any color
• Salt & Pepper
• 4 Tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 Tomato, diced or a can of ROTEL
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 lb. of lean ground beef or turkey (you can use 1 tube of Jennie-O ground turkey)
• 6 regular mushrooms, chopped or cauliflower or both
• 1/2 zucchini, chopped  
• Fresh ground pepper
• 1 cup ketchup or Spicy BBQ Sauce (if you are doing low carb, use 1 tsp. on only the tops of each bell pepper. Don't mix any inside)
• 1 tsp. of Worcestershire Sauce
• 5 Dashes of Tabasco sauce

Directions:

 

1 Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Meanwhile, cut top off peppers 1 inch from the stem end, and remove seeds. Add several generous pinches of salt to boiling water, then add peppers and boil, using a spoon to keep peppers completely submerged, until brilliant green (or red if red peppers) and their flesh slightly softened, about 3 minutes. Drain, set aside to cool. If I'm super busy I skip this step and just rinse the peppers out. YOU CAN SKIP this step if you don't have time and just add ingredients and set peppers in the water pan.

2 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat 4 tsp. of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and cook a minute more. Remove skillet from heat, add meat, and season generously with salt and pepper. Mix well. Combine all veggies in with the meat (mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, and some raw chopped onion. (You may find it easier to put the ingredients at this point into a large bowl and mix together with your hands.)

3 Combine ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce or use Spicy BBQ Sauce.  Arrange the cut side of the peppers up in a baking dish, Add half of ketchup or BBQ sauce with turkey, then stuff peppers with filling. Spoon the rest of the ketchup sauce over filling. Add 1/4 cup of water to the bottom of the baking dish ("water pan"). Place in oven and bake for 45-50 minutes (or longer, depending on how big the peppers are that you are stuffing), until the internal temperature of the stuffed peppers is 150-160°F or until top is browned.

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Pierce sides of each bell pepper to drain extra water before serving.
You can also add rice to your mixture for more carbs or use ground beef instead of turkey.