MOM'S STUFFED BELL PEPPERS

Steps:

• 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.