Cinco De Mayo Stuffed Peppers

We celebrated Cinco De Mayo yesterday as promised. Did you know that it's NOT Mexico's independence day? It's a celebration of Mexico's freedom and culture in a general sense, and it's mainly ignored in Mexico. The state of Puebla celebrates it because it marks the day they won victory over France in 1862, but otherwise, it's a United States thing. So anyway, we learned about Mexico, and Cinco De Mayo, and the Chihuahua (small, yippy Mexican dog), and then we made stuffed peppers for dinner. Best of all, my sneaky trick worked, and after helping to make the peppers, all of the kids actually ate them! Well, the insides, anyway. No one was brave enough to eat the pepper part. Here's the recipe...I modified it a little bit to make it "healthy."
Ingredients:
8 large green bell peppers
3 cups cooked brown rice (I have no idea how much this is uncooked - I made three cups of uncooked rice and it was enough to feed about 20 people. I'd make 1 cup uncooked and it should end up being about 3 cups cooked)
1 egg, beaten
1 lb. ground turkey
1 packet Chi Chi's taco seasoning (this is important - Chi Chi's is way better than any other taco seasoning and it doesn't make the meat that weird glowing brown color)
1/2 red onion, grated (use a cheese grate)
Lots of roasted or minced garlic - I used 5 cloves or so
1/2 cup wheat bread crumbs
salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco sauce to taste
1 pint tomato sauce
4 slices of bacon

Cook the rice. Beware...regular rice takes about 45 minutes to cook, so you really have to start this early. Brown the turkey. Mix the rice, egg, turkey, bread crumbs, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper.

Wash the peppers and cut off the tops. Scoop out the seeds and ribs. Place in greased 9x13 pan.

Fill peppers with rice mixture. Cut bacon in half and make X's over the top of each pepper.

Mix Tabasco with tomato sauce and pour around the peppers. Cover with foil and bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Remove foil and reduce heat to 325. Bake for about 1 hour, until peppers look a little bit wrinkly and the bacon is crisp.

Eat, enjoy, and do a little Mexican dancing when you're done.

 Yes, we even let the kids have some pop with dinner. What's a holiday without pop?