stuffed peppers

tonight i made some really yummy stuffed peppers from scratch, so i thought i'd share them with you!
this picture is pre-oven, but andrew thought they looked the same, so didn't take a post-oven pic.

ingredients:
bell peppers (usually green, we used red because they were nicer at the store)
lean ground beef
canned white corn
white rice (we used long grain)
fire-roasted diced tomatoes
italian stewed tomatoes
tomato paste
diced onions (i prefer sweet ones)
minced garlic
seasoning salt
italian seasoning
paprika
fresh ground pepper
olive oil

directions:

1. cut tops off peppers and clean out inside seeds.
2. make white rice - cook almost completely (since it will cook longer, it's ok if you turn the heat off a few minutes early) and set aside.
3. put olive oil in a saute pan, add onions and saute until transparent. add ground beef, seasoning salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic. cook until most of the pink is gone. add fire-roasted tomatoes, and corn. season to taste.
4. in a separate pot, mix stewed tomatoes, tomato paste (we substituted tomato soup, minus the water, because we were out of paste), italian seasoning, and other spices to taste. heat to bubbling.
5. combine equal parts of beef mixture and rice, ladle a few scoops of sauce mixture, and fill peppers. 
6. place peppers in a high-walled casserole dish, cover with remaining sauce (which will fill up the sides of the dish as well), place aluminum foil over top, with a few holes for ventilation. place in 350 degree oven for 20 mins. 
7. remove foil, return to oven for another 10-15 mins. serve and enjoy!

we chose to eat ours with cheezy texas toast, but we didn't need to add anything else, since it had veggis, beef, and rice... all major food groups covered ;-) for you plant-eaters out there, i'm sure you could substitute some marinated tofu... but it'd probably be gross. hehehe.