Life's too short dept

Stuffing peppers is not something I normally do, but it did occur to me that it might be quite a low-point meal, so I made something up. I never do anything fancy like take the skins off first (you can always do this if you think people will hate pulling the skins off themselves as they eat). Speed, as always, is of the essence. This didn't take too long to do.

I used 6 peppers, which happened to be mainly red, with one yellow. Didi insisted on having the yellow one, which I thought was very interesting of her. Actually, the kids had half of one each, and the adults one each, which meant 3 were left over for another day.

I sliced the end of the pepper off at the stalk end, and then roughly scooped out the seeds and white bits from the middle. The peppers were set aside in an oval ovenproof dish then to wait for the filling.

To make the filling, I first added about 300g of Sainsbury's lean steak mince to a non-stick pan. To this I added a chopped red onion and a crushed and chopped clove of garlic. When the meat was nicely browned and the onion soft, I added a couple of handfuls of chopped mushrooms (again, I've used the "basics" kind of mushrooms which are "all shapes, all sizes" from Sainsbury's). When the mushrooms too were soft, I added half a bottle of sieved tomatoes (passata or similar), a tablespoon of "A Touch of Taste" beef stock, and a box of chopped tomatoes with sliced black and green olives.

This latter product I found in Sainsbury's too. Instead of a tin of tomatoes, you get a square carton with around the same volume of tomatoes - it's easier to store, so they say - the chopped olives are a welcome, labour-saving addition.

Anyway, that's your filling. Bring to a simmering boil, then season with black pepper if desired (there's plenty of salt in the stock).

Fill the peppers, then cover the dish with foil (shiny side inwards) and place in a hot oven - 200°C, something like that for the first stage of cooking. This is about an hour or so. I didn't time it, sorry. It just smelled right to me, the peppers nicely softened and the flavours beginning to blend together.

For the next stage, slice some half fat mozzarella and top the peppers with it. Return to the oven for half an hour - or until the cheese is just brown and bubbly. Serve with some nice bread and butter if you can afford the points. If not, I reckon it's only about 4 points per pepper, which is excellent.

Didi ate it with gusto; CJ made a face and struggled through it, especially the mushrooms.