Classic Stuffed Peppers

These peppers taste like Citi Field when cooking (where my Met's fans at?). Theres no other way to describe it. Normally, you would add a tomato sauce to the mixture, but I prefer them without. Totally optional to add it in!

Side note: one night Mark put A1 sauce on top and I've never eaten them without it!

- 1 cup uncooked long-grain brown rice

- 4 large green bell peppers, bottom trimmed, cap end cut off and diced, and hallowed

- 1 large onion, diced

- 2 tsp. + 1 tsp. olive oil

- 3 links turkey Sweet Italian Sausage (or other sausage of your choice)

- 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning

- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

- salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

- 1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese

- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

- Cook rice according to package directions, or using a rice cooker.

- Trim bottom of bell peppers so they have a flat surface to stand on. Cut off a fairly generous amount of the stem end of peppers, then remove seeds. Place hollowed-out peppers in a baking dish that you’ve sprayed with non-stick spray or olive oil.

- Remove stem part from the pepper caps and trim off any white membrane, then dice pepper caps and the onion into fairly small dice. Heat 2 tsp. olive oil in a large skillet, then saute diced pepper and onion for 3-4 minutes, until they are starting to soften but aren’t browned.

- Remove pepper-onion mixture to a bowl, add 1 tsp. more olive oil, then squeeze sausage out of the casing and cook until it’s lightly browned, breaking apart with the back of the turner.

- Put the onion-pepper mixture back into the pan with the sausage, add the Italian seasoning, and sauté 2-3 minutes to blend the flavors. Then add cooked rice and Parmesan cheese, season the mixture with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste, and cook just long enough to warm, about 1-2 minutes.

- Stuff the filling mixture into the hollowed-out peppers, using a spoon to press the mixture down so it’s tightly packed into the pepper shell.

- Bake peppers for 30 minutes, then remove from oven and put a generous pinch of grated mozzarella on top of each pepper. Put peppers back into the oven and bake about 10-15 minutes more, until cheese is melted and lightly browned. Serve hot.