the early bird special

Greek Stuffed Tomatoes and Peppers
Cribbed and adapted from both my grandmother and mother's recipes

3 large tomatoes
3 bell peppers
1 pound ground beef or turkey
1 yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp dill
Olive oil (honestly, who measures that when they're cooking)
1 cup rice
4 potatoes, peeled and sliced into wedges
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large saucepan, saute the the onion and garlic with as much delicious olive oil as you can pour into the pan without feeling fat (a tablespoon or two). Once the onions become translucent, add your ground meat. While meat is browning, slice the lids off your tomatoes and hollow them out. Dump tomato guts into the browning mixture. Once all the meat is cooked, season with salt, pepper and dill and add 1 cup of rice and a cup or two of water (the tomatoes will have added a good amount of moisture to the mixture, so your rice ratio will be slightly different than usual). Cover and wait for your rice to become almost soft. At this point, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 9 by 13 baking dish by sloshing a little bit of olive oil in the dish. Slice the lids of your bell peppers and remove the seeds. Arrange your hollow tomatoes and peppers in the dish and set your potato wedges seasoned with salt and pepper around them. When the rice is almost tender, spoon the mixture into the prepared vegetables until they are full. Replace the vegetables lids, mostly because it is cute. Place the dish in your preheated oven and bake for one hour, or until the potatoes are golden brown.

If you have leftover filling, you can add a little more water and cook until the rice is completely soft. This filling is delicious and can be served on the side or saved for a separate meal.

Last night I made this dish for Cody and I, and I also prepped a soup for the crock pot. I'm making a black bean soup that I found the recipe for in the comments section of one of Heather Havrilesky's articles on Salon. I'm making the soup mostly because it looks delicious but a little bit because I think Heather is brilliant and an excellent writer and I accept most of her opinions in her weekly TV column as gospel. Yes, I understand that she didn't personally vouch for this recipe dumped in her comments section, but somehow I irrationally find it reputable by proximity. I'll let you know how that works out for me.