Stuffed Green Peppers

My  Mom made these when I was growing up and I loved them. I have no idea what her recipe was if she even had one, I was too interested in guys and skiing, guys and motorcycles, guys and...well you get the general idea, to be interested in cooking. Mom was a fairly rudimentary cook, the basics and nothing particularly fancy. When she tried to be a bit fancy, it didn't always work, and there were stories in the family about her inedible Christmas Cranberry Salad or Fruitcake that could be used as doorstops.

She was a working Mom, long before it was as commonplace as it is now. She was a college grad-u-ate, about which my Dad, who was not, chided her. Most of my friends' Moms stayed home and made (in my opinion) better and fancier food, but she came home from work and often threw something together with no particular plan.

When I was married and raising 4-yes, 4-male teenage eating machines, I had a dry-erase calendar on the wall to plan the month's meals and make a shopping list, of which Costco played a big part, and a Daytimer to keep track of their band, sports, and scouts schedules, who was dropping off or picking up whom, and I was overjoyed when the oldest started driving, because he wanted to drive so badly he was delighted to take over the kid-delivery duties, although the first few times the kid took off with the rest of my offspring in a hurtling, wheeled instrument of death was quite scary to me.

The only wreck he ever had he was by himself in a 1970-ish Ford Maverick, a gift from my Aunt when she turned 80 and decided to stop driving. It was made of real metal, had a standard  transmission, NO power steering or power brakes. Roll-down windows. I thought it was hell to drive, the few times I had to. I did have a CD player installed in it for him. B (I'm not trying to conceal his identity, I do call my kids B, Beej, and T, or the all-encompassing, it could be any of you-Sweetie, and don't get them started on "uh oh, she used the middle name") rear-ended an Infiniti while fiddling (not the word he used at the time, but this blog has no adult content) with the radio volume. The Infiniti was totaled and the Maverick merely needed a new bumper to continue its journeys on life's highways. I think the hood was damaged, but he didn't care, it faithfully rolled him and his siblings whereever they needed to go, and after they left home I sold it to another kid and have no idea if it's still on the road today.

It's just me and one of those boys at home now, with visits from my partner, Ron, so I never go to Costco now, I just don't need that much food. My Mom shopped there, though, nearly until she died, a willing purchaser of mass quantities that we brought to our house during the clean out process of her house . There was so much food, too much to fit into our cupboards so we stacked it on the counter and kitchen floor and categorized it cupboard food, counter food, and floor food. She was a heavy smoker until a week before she died when, on oxygen, I threw her cigs away, afraid she was going to blow her house up, so some of the food smelled so much of smoke that we had to discard it, but what we kept we ate for months. That was in July 2001, and I still miss her every day. She may not have been much of a cook, but she was an incredibly intelligent and loving person, and in retrospect, I am grateful she was spared the agony that was 9-11 that year.

But, I digress; back to the stuffed peppers, they're something of a comfort food that I love but rarely make.

Stuffed Green Peppers

4 green peppers, tops cut off, seeds and veins removed
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup cooked rice
1/2 onion, chopped
1 egg
a couple tablespoons of ketchup
garlic salt and pepper to taste

Combine beef and the rest of the ingredients and press into prepared peppers. Bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour. Eat!