Stuffed bell peppers are a delicious, healthy dish, that can be adapted in a variety of ways to use ingredients on hand and to please a range of palates.  I made mine to use up some summer veggies I had in the kitchen.

4 large green bell peppers
1 large tomato, chopped
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini squash
2 ears corn
1 cup brown rice (uncooked)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Tomato sauce
1.5 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Since it will take the longest to cook, I recommend starting with the brown rice first.  Brown rice generally cooks at a ratio of 2 units water to 1 unit rice, but check the instructions on the bag to make sure.  Once my brown rice was cooking, I brought a second pot of water to a boil for the corn.  You want enough water to submerge the corn, but be careful that the water doesn't overflow when you add the corn.  Boil corn for about 3 minutes, then remove from water.  Some people like their corn cooked a little longer, but the corn will also spend time in the oven, so 3 minutes should be plenty.  After the corn was cooked, I took a sharp knife and ran it down the sides of the corn cob to remove the individual kernels.  You want to cut relatively deep to remove as much of the kernel as possible.  

Next I sliced the yellow squash and zucchini.  I was careful not to cut the slices too thin, as they reduce in size when they are cooked, I like them at about 1/4 inch thickness.  I then put a pan over medium high heat with a bit of olive oil.  Once the pan was nice and hot, I added the yellow squash and zucchini, and cooked until I had a nice brown on both sides.  I like to use medium high heat, so that you get a nice browning on the outside, but the inside doesn't get too soft, as the squashes will also undergo further cooking in the oven.  

The next step was to cut the tops off of the green bell peppers, and remove the interior seeds and walls.  I then placed the bell peppers into a microwaveable dish, and added 1/2 inch of water to the bottom of the dish.  I microwaved the bell peppers in the dish for about 5 minutes.  This step precooks the bell peppers, so that they don't need to spend as much time in the oven to soften, and speeds up the cooking time overall.  After the bell peppers cooked in the microwave, I carefully dumped out the water from the dish, and put the bell peppers back into the dish.  

By now, my brown rice was about done.  So, I turned off the heat on the rice, and let it sit for a few minutes to absorb any water still in the pot.  After the rice had a few minutes to sit, I mixed in the corn, zucchini, yellow squash, chopped tomato, soy sauce, salt, and pepper.  Once you've mixed these ingredients together, give it a taste and add additional seasoning if necessary.  

I then scooped the rice/veggie mixture into each of the bell peppers, already fit snuggly in my microwave/oven safe dish.  I topped each pepper with tomato sauce, and filled the base of the dish with 1/2 to 1 inch of additional tomato sauce.  Each bell pepper was then topped with cheddar cheese, and placed into a preheated (350F) oven.  I baked the stuffed peppers at 350F for about 30 minutes.  Then removed and enjoyed!  

This dish could easily be altered in a number of ways depending on what ingredients you have available.  Black beans would be a great addition to the rice mixture.  I've seen recipes that scrap the veggies, and instead call for tofu, pecans, dried cranberries, and brown sugar, which I think could be quite interesting.  Or, maybe a Greek twist, using couscous instead of rice, black olives, spinach, and topped with feta cheese!   

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