Mom's Stuffed Bell Peppers

Cut tops off bell peppers, making a bell pepper "bowl".

Remove seeds and membrane, rinsing well under cold water.

Par-boil peppers for approximately 5 minutes.

Remove peppers from boiling water and place in a 9 x 13 baking dish.

Brown ground beef and drain any excess fat.

Add chopped onion to ground beef, stirring every few minutes.

Meanwhile, make rice by boiling the cup of water and butter, adding rice and simmering until rice is cooked, as you would normally make steamed rice.

While rice is cooking, mix tomato sauce, sugar and basil together in a seperate bowl.

When rice is done, add to meat and onion mixture.

Add half of the sauce and half of the cheddar cheese to meat mixture, stirring all together.

Spoon meat mixture into each bell pepper; if you have any left over you can spoon some around the peppers as well.

Spoon remaining sauce mixture over each bell pepper and top with remaining cheese.

Bake at 350 for approx 20 minutes.

NOTE: Although this sounds like a lot of steps to go through, this is one of those recipes where you can be doing more than one thing at a time.

I usually start my water to boil for the par-boiling of the peppers at the same time I'm browing the ground beef and chopping my onion, and cleaning the bell peppers.

I am also guilty of making more sauce than needed, and adding more cheese than necessary. I really don't think you can screw this up -- it's just a matter of personal taste, so feel free to play with the amounts.