Stuffed Bell Peppers With Cloves

This is the recipe I grew up with and couldn't find one like it on Zaar. When I was little, I did not like this recipe but now crave it! My mom would make a meatball in the sauce w/o the pepper for my brother and me. Now, I usually just half the peppers and put in the filling but the directions below are the way my mom makes them. Also for the sauce, I skip the flour and the heating part and just dump all the ingredients over the filled peppers. The prep time is a total guess!

• Ready In: 1 hr 20 mins
• Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 2 -4  large bell peppers
• 1 1⁄2 lbs ground beef or 1 1⁄2 lbs turkey
• 1  slice  bread, crumbled (or equivalent in bread crumbs)
• 1  egg
• 1  medium onion, finely chopped, divided use
• 1  teaspoon table salt, divided use
• 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper, divided use
• 4  tablespoons ketchup (optional)
• 1⁄2 cup skim milk
• 4  cups tomatoes, chopped (fresh, frozen or canned)
• 2  tablespoons flour
• 3  cloves
• 1⁄2 teaspoon sugar

Directions

1. Peppers: Slice tops off peppers and remove seeds. Cut small hole in bottom of each for drainage. Boil a few minutes, covered, in small amount of water. Remove from water and drain.
2. Filling: Mix the meat, bread, egg, about 1/2 cup of the onion, 3/4 t. salt (or to taste), pepper to taste, ketchup and milk. (My mom did not include the ingredients for her meatloaf so I copied most of the ingredients from Recipe #54257 as they sounded pretty close to what she uses!).
3. Stuff peppers. If you have too much meat, form extra into pepper-sized balls.
4. Tomato sauce: Mom uses about four cups of fresh (frozen) or one lg. can of canned tomatoes. Heat with a couple tablespoons flour, salt and pepper to taste, chopped onion and more green pepper if you want, and maybe three cloves. Mom suggests adding a little sugar to tomato-based dishes, maybe half a teaspoons.
5. Arrange peppers in a deep casserole (Mom uses a deep square Corning one).
6. Pour tomato sauce over the top. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for about an hour. Serve with boiled potatoes.