Italian Style Stuffed Peppers

Italian Stuffed Peppers is a delicious one bowl meal that makes it a cinch to eat a wholesome meal during the weekend. It is loaded with cooked rice, seasoned veggies and mouth licking marinara sauce. To enhance its flavor and bring richness to the dish, it is done with cheese and breadcrumbs for a crispy topping which is truly amazing. This dish can be served as like a wholesome meal or can be served with toasted garlic bread.

To make the dish more presentive I used colored bell peppers. If color bell peppers are not easy to find, you can simply go ahead with green ones. This dish can be prepared on stove top, but I chose to make it in oven.The oven roasting bell peppers retains its texture, flavors are intact and lastly avoid overcooking

INGREDIENTS
To Make Marinara Sauce

•   Tomatoes – 4 nos, big (roughly chopped)
•   Garlic – 5 cloves (finely chopped)
•   Onion – 1 no, medium (finely chopped)
•   Oregano powder – 1tsp
•   Red chilly powder or Red flakes – ¾ tsp
•   Pepper powder – ½ tsp (optional)
•   Sugar – ½ tsp (totally optional, but I like to use in the sauce)
•   Salt to taste
•   Olive oil – 2 tbsp

Other Ingredients Needed

•   Cooked rice– 1&1/2 cups (any type of rice can be used .I used long grain rice)
•   Bellpeppers or Capsicum– 3 nos (any colors of bell peppers can be used)
•   Olive oil –2 tbsp
•   Onion – 1 nos (chopped)
•   Potato, parboiled – 1 medium (chopped)
•  Corn, parboiled – ¼ cup (fresh or frozen)
•   Carrot, parboiled– 2 medium (chopped)
•   Cilantro leaves – a handful
•   Oregano – ½ tsp
•   Pepper powder – 1tsp
•   Red chilly flakes – 1tsp
•   Salt to taste
•   Mozzarella Cheese – ½ cup
•   Bread crumbs – ¼ cup (gives crispiness to the dish. If not available, one can omit it)

To Make Marinara Sauce

• Roughly cut the tomatoes and crush them into the mixer. Do not over ground them. It’s ok, if there are chunks of tomatoes left in it.
• Heat a pan on the medium flame. Add oil into it.
  
• Then add chopped garlic. Fry them till they slightly changes its color.
• Then add chopped onion. Fry till onion turns pink. 
• Add crushed tomatoes. Stir well and cook till tomatoes are soft and leaves the oil at the sides of the pan
  
• Finally flavor the sauce with oregano powder, pepper powder, redchilly flakes, sugar and salt. Mix well and cook the sauce for another 3 to 4 minutes.
  
• Marinara sauce is ready.

To make stuffing for Bell peppers

• Heat oil into a pan. Add chopped onion and fry till onion is transparent.
• Add all the parboiled veggies and season them with salt, oregano powder,pepper powder and red chilly flakes. Mix well and cook for 3 to 4 minutes.
• Mix in the cooked rice, marinara sauce and chopped cilantro. Give a nice stir, so that rice and veggies incorporates with each other.
• Reserve little quantity of marinara sauce to top it on the stuffed bellpeppers.
• Taste for seasoning. Add the seasoning if needed.

To Assemble Bell peppers for Roasting

• Preheat oven at 180 Celsius.
• Wash the bellpeppers and pat them dry using kitchen towel before using in the recipe.
• Cut the bellpeppers vertically into two halves. Remove the steam and scoop out all the seeds.
• Stuff the rice-veggies mixture evenly into the bellpeppers and place them into the oil greased baking pan.
• Sprinkle the cheese and bread crumbs. Then top each stuffed bellpeppers with spoon full of marinara sauce.
• Bake the stuffed bellpeppers for 20 to 25 minutes until the bellpeppers are soft and the top is crispy.
• Here we go Italian Style Stuffed Bellpeppers are ready.