I was in my mid 20s. I made this recipe for Sunday guests, thinking two generous size green bell peppers, stuffed, for each would be sufficient. I learned a valuable lesson that day and received nice compliments. The biggest one: next time be sure to make more.

Cautiously, to be polite, Poppa A asked for seconds; someone who would never do that in someone else’s home. I was completely honoured. A nice memory from the one who insisted that I must eat Brussels sprouts and creamed endive in béchamel sauce (that I had never heard of), complete with fresh grated nutmeg. That was more than 50 years ago.

So many recipes start this way. Buy fresh (never frozen — it tastes different, as does most meat) medium fat ground beef.

Brown the beef well but you don’t want it to be crunchy. It is very important to the final taste that the beef is browned sufficiently. Finely chop an onion and add to the meat. Add a small handful of finely chopped firm white button mushrooms. Sprinkle salt and pepper.

Cover the pot to “sweat” the onions. Stay at the stove. Add a clove of garlic. Don’t cut the garlic or smash it.

You want the delicate garlic flavour to enhance all the other ingredients. Mash the garlic with a fork when it is fork tender. Add a large tin of whole tomatoes and sauce. Using a fork, break up the tomatoes. Heat and stir to combine flavours.

Add an equal portion of cooked steamed plain white rice that is just barely cooked. Stir all the ingredients together and set aside. Allow the flavours to marry.

Now, back then I didn’t know much about cooking with herbs and spices so it was simple; I didn’t use any.

Wash a dozen green peppers. Chop the tops off about an inch down from the top, keeping the “handle” in place. Scoop out seeds and using a spoon, remove some of the fibrous tissue.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a roaring boil. Lid on.

If the peppers look like they might not want to stand upright, slice a tiny bit off the bottom, before par boiling, to stabilize. Not much.

Using tongs, insert the peppers into the boiling water, reduce heat and par boil the peppers. No lid. Don’t walk away from the stove. This just takes a couple of minutes. The peppers are not cooked. This procedure will help preserve the bright green colour if done properly.

Using tongs, remove the par boiled whole peppers and drain on a rack over a cookie sheet.

Fill each pepper to capacity with the meat and rice filling. Push the filling down a little bit, but not hard. You don’t want to crack the peppers.

Position the stuffed peppers, touching one another, upright in a roasting pan, with the pepper lids in place.

Tent with tinfoil, shiny side in. Bake in the preheated oven at 350 F until the skin on the  peppers can easily be pierced. You don’t want the peppers to get mushy. Likely 20 minutes will be enough baking time. But quickly close the oven door; you don’t want the heat to escape to lower the oven temperature.

Always remember, food continues to cook in its own heat once removed from the oven.

While the peppers bake, heat your favourite plain bottled tomato sauce, homemade or store bought. Add a bay leaf or two to the sauce. Don’t boil but make sure the sauce is very hot, because it cools quickly.

Place two stuffed green peppers with lids in place, on each serving plate, in a puddle of hot tomato sauce. Serve extra sauce in a gravy boat. Sprinkle finely grated dry Parmesan cheese on each plate as you serve. Some people like a dollop of sour cream on top, sprinkled with mild Hungarian paprika. That’s my personal favourite.

Keep the remaining peppers warm in the turned off oven, with the door ajar.

Although these stuffed green bell peppers are filling, many will want seconds. If you have leftovers, they reheat well and a fresh drizzle of tomato sauce will make them seem fresh all over again. They do not freeze well after they are baked, but if you insist, freeze them after they are stuffed but before they are baked. Then bake frozen.

Perhaps take leftovers to work. Only microwave for a few seconds. Split them in half or quarters before reheating. It helps speed up the reheat process.

If you are participating in a pot luck supper, or are invited to bring a dish to someone else’s house, make a large amount in an oversize turkey roasting pan. Reheat when you get there. Serve and enjoy.

Everyone will want the recipe.

Compliments of From Lady Ralston’s Kitchen: A Canadian Contessa Cooks

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I need some recipe tester volunteers. I have well over 300 original recipes. Over the years, I have made them all and in recent years have modified some.

Many recipes go back to the 70s when life was so much simpler. And gourmet certainly wasn’t what it is today. I don’t make esoteric things, as many gourmet folks do. Just good basic home cooking, dressed for company, or to enjoy at home, on the road or even at a picnic, or to take along to someone else’s place. Even occasionally for gift giving.

People sometimes say they don’t have time to cook. It’s one thing if you simply don’t like cooking, but if you do and think you can’t fit it into your schedule, it’s no different than other types of time management.
I never worked less than a 60-hour week in my 35-year real estate career and in busy markets, I put in even more hours.  Every day I arranged my schedule to be home to cook dinner. The only way that can work is if you are super organized, using schedules and calendars. And you must schedule in “me-time” just for you, even if it’s just tub-time.

It’s only in really recent years we’ve had smart phones and computers to help us be organized. Shop in off hours; I can’t bear to stand in line-ups. It’s not always practical to shop in large stores. Parking and push and shove shopping environments are exhausting. And you don’t always save shopping in large bulk with no place to store it all at home.

Shop in medium large stores, mostly only buy sale items; you will get to know the best prices. Choose a maximum of three regular store brands, ideally near one another. Ideally just two, and a third for emergency finds.

Time wasted running all over town, gas wasted and comparison shopping can take way too much time and energy. Once in a while splurge and stock up; but don’t do that kind of shopping every week. Make lists. Always add an item to your watch-for list, when you break out the last bottle or container. That way you will never run out of things like deodorant and toilet tissue, laundry soap, toothpaste and such.

I know people who don’t stock up on bacon, for example, because they rarely eat it. But when they do they really enjoy it. Bacon freezes wonderfully well. Cut the package in half crosswise. Freeze half until you need a bacon fix. That’s just one example.

The recipe book is a time consuming process. Making recipes, when you love to cook, is a joy. But the record keeping and typing out of each one, and editing and keeping track is a massive undertaking. But for me, it’s my joy and entertainment.

I need someone to double check the recipes and comment on ease of use, and to see if I made any goofs along the way. Not just my typing. There are only 50+ recipes on REM in five years. So you can see there are many more.

So far, a couple of years’ time and my manuscript keeps growing. I can only eat so much, and people seem to love my original recipes. Hindsight is always foresight. Although I saved all my recipes and gourmet newspaper columns and other writings I saved over the years, I wish I had done the cookbook years ago.

So, let me know if you read my recipes in REM and if you have made any of my recipes, please. And, send me a private email if you want to test specific groupings, perhaps.