It’s that time of year again where I am blessed with having a mind blowing cook in the house! Damir’s dad is back with us for 3 weeks this summer, and I am loving every moment of it. He made a trip out to a local farm to pick two huge bags full of white bell peppers and tomatoes, and we set to work this weekend making one of my favorites… stuffed peppers!!!
The best part, these are so freaking healthy it’s insane! Just 200 (ish) calories for each pepper, and two are incredibly filling.
Bosnian Stuffed Peppers (Punjene Paprike)
Ingredients:
- 1 carrot
- 1 small onion
- 1 stalk celery
- 1/2 celery root
- 4-5 cloves of garlic
- 1 tomato
- 3 TBS fresh parsley
- 1 1/2 cups cooked rice
- 1 lb ground beef
- 4 Tbs tomato sauce
- 1 -2 Tbs Vegeta*
- 1 tsp sweet red pepper**
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 10 white bell peppers
- 2 cups boiling water
*Vegeta is a European seasoning similar to seasoning salt, so make sure not to use any additional salt in any recipe containing Vegeta. I have made this mistake a few times and the food was almost too salty to even eat!
** Look for “Hungarian Paprika,” which you can find at a many small, local European stores or at World Market. It may also be called “Red Sweet Pepper.” This spice it VERY different from the spicy Paprika (with lots of heat) that we often use in the U.S. Damir’s dad made this mistake last year, and we could barely eat it! He was a trouper and powered through with plenty of sour cream, but the spice in this recipe should not be hot at all, as most Bosnian dishes rarely have any heat to them.
Instructions:
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Roughly chop the carrot, onion, celery, celery root, and garlic and place in a food processor (or finely dice). Add the parsley and process into fine pieces.
2. Add the raw ground beef and cooked rice to the veggie mixture along with the black pepper, sweet red pepper, and vegeta and combine well.
3. Cut off the tops of the white bell peppers and seed them. Stuff each pepper with the beef/veggie mixture and place into an oiled baking dish. Once all of the peppers are stuffed, peel the skin from the tomato and dice, then sprinkle evenly over the tops of the peppers.
4. Finally, pour 2 cups of boiling water over the peppers. Bake for 30-40 minutes, but keep an eye on them. It is ok for the tops of the peppers to blacken, but you want to keep them from completely burning, which has happened to me, although I blame the oven.
5. Serve with a spoonful of the tomatoes from the pan and plenty of sour cream. Enjoy!
Hi! I'm Alyce. 
