make ahead meals | Gazy Brothers Farm

This is one of my favorite go to make ahead meal recipes. It’s easy, versatile, and delicious. You can make with the ground meat blend of your choice. I’ve made it as a vegetarian dish by adding sauteed chard and spinach instead of meat. You can use this stuffing with other vegetables like tomatoes or zucchini instead of peppers. It’s fantastic as a family meal or dinner for one. Best of all the stuffing freezes well and can easily be packed up in serving containers of your choice for an easy mid-week, healthy meal.

Ingredients:
1-4 bell peppers
1 minced jalapeno
1 chopped banana pepper
1 chopped onion
Calabrian or cherry peppers in oil – to taste
2 cups cooked rice or 1 package ready rice
2 1/2 cups of tomato sauce, divided
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese grated
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1 egg lightly beaten
1 pound of ground beef, pork or turkey – any combo

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Saute onions and peppers in oil from the hot peppers 5 minutes – till light golden brown. Season with salt, pepper and chili flakes. Turn off heat and add cooked rice along with 1 cup tomato sauce to pan. Stir together and let mixture cool.

Mix ground meat, beaten egg, and rice mixture and combine. Add Parmesan cheese and stir till blended.

Cut bell peppers in half lengthwise, discard seeds membranes and stem. Cover the bottom of a glass or ceramic baking dish with sauce. Fill each pepper half with 1/2 cup of the meat mixture and place in dish. Cover each pepper with sauce. Cover and bake for 45 minutes.

While peppers are baking portion out any remaining meat mixture into freezable containers. I usually make batches of about 1 cup of meat mix (enough for 1 pepper). Pack, label and freeze.

Uncover baking dish and add small pieces of mozzarella to the top of each pepper half.

Bake uncovered 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and slightly brown. Serve and enjoy!

Foil packets are delicious, easy, plan ahead, throw on BBQ or in oven!

Flavor combinations are limitless – you pick what’s fresh and how you want your broth flavored. This variation is OKRAlicious! This recipe serves 4 but is easy to size up or down.

Ingredients
4 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup okra, sliced into rounds
1 cup yellow and red peppers, chopped
1 cup green beans, chopped
2 carrots, cut length-wise in strips
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
4 tbsp Italian dressing
4 tbsp white wine
Minced chives
Fresh or dried herb – fresh is better if you have it
Salt and pepper to taste
Aluminum foil, 4 sheets – extra heavy is preferred

Step 1: Preheat oven to 375.
Chop vegetables and prepare foil by spraying or brushing with oil.

Step 2: Make the vegetable bed by adding 1/4 cup each of green beans, onions, and carrots to sprayed foil sheet. Sprinkle with chives.

Step 3: Salt and pepper chicken and layer on top of vegetable bed. Top chicken with 1/4 cup mushrooms, peppers and okra. Sprinkle any additional fresh herbs or seasoning you enjoy now, and some more salt and pepper to top layer of veggies.

Step 4: Drizzle each packet with 1 tablespoon Italian dressing (or whatever flavor combination you prefer, such as lemon or lime juice).

Step 5: Crimp edges together to make the foil packets.
Step 6: Place packets on cooking sheet and put on center rack of preheated 375F oven. Alternatively throw the packets on the BBQ.

Step 7: Unwrap hot packets carefully and serve in a bowl being careful to pour all the delicious broth from the packets into your bowl – yum. Eat and enjoy!