Stuffed Green Peppers

Again, I had some things to use from the garden, and I decided that stuffed peppers would be the best thing. Another plug for allrecipes.com: You can go there and put in any ingredients you have on hand, and it will bring up recipes with those ingredients. Very nice.
This is the recipe I used, but there are LOTS of ways to make these--vegetarian, low-fat, high-fat, southwestern...I just used this one because I had to make sure and use up tomatoes and green peppers. Brown rice would have been good if I'd had time. I also might have added a little something more for flavor, but Elliot liked them the way they were.
The recipe calls for 4 peppers, but I filled up six of them with ease.

Ingredients

• 6 medium tomatoes - peeled, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 3 ribs celery, diced
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup water
• 2 teaspoons salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided
• 4 medium green peppers
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 1 cup instant rice, cooked
• 1 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

1. In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, combine tomatoes, onion, celery, tomato sauce, water, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut tops off of green peppers and remove seeds; set aside. In a bowl, combine ground beef, rice, basil and remaining salt and pepper; mix well. Fill peppers with beef mixture. Carefully place peppers in tomato sauce. Spoon some sauce over tops of peppers. Cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes or until beef is cooked and peppers are tender.