Stuffed Peppers

As always,  vegetables are a challenge.  Green peppers are another dangerous-looking item which I avoid.  They have a strange aftertaste, and all that green color convinces me there are terrifyingly large amounts of nutrients in there.  But this recipe does an excellent job of hiding the vegetable taste, covering it with delicious flavor instead.  And there's cheese.  (Are there foods without cheese?  There shouldn't be.)

Ingredients
1 lb pork
1 packet "skillet sauce" Carnita or Fajita flavor.
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
6 tablespoons light sour cream
brown rice - 2 cups cooked.  (if starting with bulk, this is 2/3 c dry + 2 c water)
4 green peppers

Start with pork.   You can use whatever solid pork you want...I happened to have some chunks of pork loin on hand but you could start with pork chops or pork "steak" or whatever...any pound of pork will do.  Put it in the crockpot with some cooking sauce.  Shanon uses the "Carnita" flavor which I cannot find where I live.  I use the "Fajita" flavor.  You'll usually find them in the grocery store right by the taco seasoning. In the case you can't find these sauce packets at all, just use some spices, about a tablespoon of southwest seasoning, a squeeze of lime and a cup or so of water.

Put these in the crock pot.  Add one chopped onion.  I have experimented with different onion choppings...small dice vs. large chop vs long strips of onion...all these experiments were probably a waste of time since it seems to taste exactly the same every way I've tried.  But it was science.  Yeah, I'm a scientist now.



 IF your crockpot has a tight lid, you probably don't need any other liquid.  MY Crockpot does NOT have a tight lid, so I need to add extra liquid or this will dry out.  Use some chicken stock, or just water.  Cook all day. 
At some point in the day, cook some brown rice. I do this in a rice cooker with chicken stock but any method is fine. It's not hard to cook, but it does take some time. If you use instant, I won't judge. Ok, I might judge a tiny bit. But I think we can all agree instant brown rice is clearly better than no brown rice at all.

  Return to your crockpot.  The pork has fallen apart and absorbed all the flavor of the sauce.  Time to shred the pork.  You can do this with two forks.  Due to my lack of manual dexterity, I prefer to pull the pork out of the sauce/onions and then add them back in after the shredding.  You could definitely shredd it IN the crockpot if you have the skills for that sort of thing.  Once the pork is shredded, add the onions.  If needed, add some of the cooking liquid to keep it from being dry, just a few tablespoons.  Now add the sour cream and cheese and rice.  (Note that 6 tablespoons of of sour cream is 3/8 cup.  I do not have a measuring cup that size, so I use the tablespoons.  Or, to be honest, heaping tablespoons because I really like sour cream and want to sneak more in.)  Stir. 

Time to address the peppers.  Cut each pepper in half.  You can see each has a chunk of seeds/innards by the stem that you can just rip out with your hand.  Once all the peppers are "empty" place them on a greased cookie sheet (open side up) in the oven at 425 degrees for 10 minutes.

When the peppers emerge, they are ready to be stuffed.  There may be some liquid in each pepper-cup.  Ignore it.  (At first I was concerned this liquid might make my stuffing taste pepper-like, and carefully soaked it up with a paper towel.  Then I became lazy, and left the liquid...no taste difference, and infinitely improved chances of avoiding severe burns.) Usually this stuffing will fill 4 peppers/8 halves, but it will vary based on the size of the peppers.  If you have extra, just heap it up on top.  It's pretty sticky and generally doesn't fall out.

Cook for an additional 10-15 minutes at 425.  Remove, and prepare to be amazed by the lack of vegetable taste.  The interior stuffing is gooey and delicious.  The exterior green pepper part in inoffensice AND makes it easier to stab with your fork.  You can serve with a little extra sour cream for dipping.  These are super fiet-friendly: each pepper-half only has about 200 calories, so you can eat two and still have ice cream for dessert. 
They reheat very well, so can be packed for lunch the next day.