Sloppy Joe Stuffed Bell Peppers

     Sometimes you run across a recipe, and you wonder why you never thought of that before yourself! This is one of those... although, I don't make sloppy joe's all that much, it just seemed like such a genius idea, I was a little upset with myself for not thinking of it first. I adapted this recipe that I found from No Reason Needed, and the link can be found at the bottom.

     Who doesn't love a good sloppy joe... and who doesn't love a good stuffed bell pepper? Why not combine them? Although, I will say that while I make a good sloppy joe, I'm still trying to master the stuffed bell pepper. Stouffer's makes such a great stuffed pepper, that I've been trying to recreate it, but with no success so far. If you haven't tried their frozen stuffed bell pepper dish yet, you should. Well, only if you like green bell peppers stuffed with ground beef, rice, and submerged in a healthy amount of tomato sauce... then heck yes. And if you're looking for a healthier frozen meal, that's it, I can tell you that much!

     I thought this meal was pretty good actually, however, my husband was too lazy to cut the pepper into pieces and eat it TOGETHER!, instead he just ate the sloppy joe part out of the pepper, and then sucked the pepper dry, maybe taking a bite of it here and there... eesh! He said he would prefer it over a bed of rice next time... Why not just in a bun like an actual sloppy joe?! I don't know, he's crazy!

     I don't think I have ever said this before, and I doubt I'll ever say it again... but I actually could have done without the cheese on this dish... WEIRD! I know. For some reason it just didn't jive with the sloppy joe part for me. Thankfully I didn't mix it in... which might have made it better, I don't know.

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 large onion, or one small onion, diced
4 green peppers (make sure the bottoms will sit flat)
1 clove garlic
1 tsp Chili powder
1 tsp Paprika
salt
2 Tbsp Molasses
1/2 C Ketchup
2 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
3 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar, or White vinegar is fine too
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1/2 C shredded Mozzarella and Cheddar cheese, or whatever cheese floats your boat

Directions:
Slice the tops of your green peppers off, but reserve the tops and dice them up.
Bring a large pot of water to boil, and add your bell peppers. Boil for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, saute the diced onion and green pepper tops in a tbsp olive oil and garlic.

These are the ingredients you will add; except that I forgot to picture the brown sugar.

Add your ingredients, and it will look like this. Now, I'm all about seasoning that meat up as much as possible, so I always like to add my seasonings to meat first, let it soak it, and then add any liquids.

After adding in all the ingredients, including the liquid, here's what it will look like:
It doesn't necessarily look totally appetizing, but it tasted good.

Once the peppers are done boiling, take them out and drain them while the meat finishes cooking.
When the meat is done, put foil in the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish and place the peppers standing up in the dish.
Scoop the meat mixture into the peppers, there was just enough for the 4 peppers.

Place a handful of cheese on top of each pepper and place in a 350 degree oven for roughly 15 minutes.

Recipe Courtesy of: No Reason Needed