Stuffed Pepper Soup

It’s getting cold. Can you feel it? Soon it will be Autumn and my favorite time of year: Soup season!

I could wax rhapsodic about my love for soup for many an age. I love soup of all kinds (so long as the amount of celery that ends up floating in the stock is limited -- but that’s an argument for another day). The one I'm about to present to you is one of my all time favorites.

I have a special relationship with stuffed pepper soup (and definitely more memories surrounding this little number than actual stuffed peppers). Many a chilly fall / winter day has been warmed by this soup, but there is one fall day in particular:

It was my junior year of college and having lived in a dorm on a meal plan for the past two years, my cooking skills left something to be desired. Not to mention the fact that college was a rough one emotionally. So, one fall day when things had been particularly rough (though this was still before the time of the bats), my mother showed up with several bags full of ingredients and we got down to making stuffed pepper soup.

Since then, stuffed pepper soup has been on of "our things". Whenever I come home during the fall or winter holidays, we tend to make it at least once. Just last week, she came up to attend a Michigan football game and we made yet another batch.

[ignore the beans; we also made chili]

And so, since this is one of my most requested recipes (especially by my dear friend Jill), I've decided to share its wonderment with you.

Stuffed Pepper Soup

[via mi madre]

[Ingredients]

2 lb ground beef

1 green bell pepper

1 can tomato sauce

1 diced tomato

2 cubes beef bouillon

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 T soy sauce

2 cups cooked rice

[What to do]

1. Brown beef over medium heat
2. Add peppers and saute for 3 minutes
3. Stir in rest of ingredients (sans rice). Reduce heat to love, cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes
4. Stir in rice and heat through
5. Be sure to add some Parmesan  and romano cheese to the top when you serve.