Roasted Stuffed Bell Peppers

Made this for dinner, super easy to put together and satisfying to eat. It definitely qualifies as comfort food.

Inspired by this recipe with a few variations to accommodate picky eaters: we used round rice instead of brown rice, and did not include beans, lime or chili pepper. As you can see from the photo, it turned out pretty great. A good dish to bring to a potluck (do the last bit of roasting on site.)

Here’s what we did (the amounts below are for 5 medium sized bell peppers.)

1. Pre-heat oven to 425F.
2. Slice the bell peppers in half stem to bottom, remove stems, seeds and any membrane. Arrange cut side up in baking dish. Drizzle a bit of extra virgin olive oil in each half and massage it in so it coats the pepper nicely inside and out. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and grind pepper over the oil coated halves. In the oven they go for about 20-25 min until nicely roasted. Remove from oven leaving it on and hot. While waiting for the peppers do the following:
3. Cook 1/2 cup (dry) of rice (we used round rice, which worked out very nicely.)
4. Sautee a large diced onion in olive oil until soft and golden, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, add 2 cups diced tomato. Once the tomatos are soft mix in 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro, 4 pressed cloves of garlic, and 1 teaspoon cumin, and stir for another minutes or so until everything smells amazing. Remove from heat and mix in the cooked rice, generously grind in black pepper, and salt to taste.
5. Stuff the peppers with the rice mixture (we had plenty of rice left over, a lovely dish in and of itself.) Generously sprinkle shredded mozzarella on top, and put back in the hot oven for about 12 min until the cheese is browned in spots.
6. Eat!