Stuffing more peppers

I've made stuffed peppers before, and it went really well. Yes, there were some shortcomings; namely, I couldn't taste the cheese. A friend believes that the only properly stuffed peppers are stuffed with cumin. Some variations are meat-heavy, while others are almost entirely rice. Point is, you can stuff just about anything into a pepper with a reasonable degree of success.

When I asked the Chief Taster what she wanted for dinner this week, she found this recipe online. I, in turn, dutifully bought what I needed, then started making changes through conscious effort, mistakes, and sheer laziness. This is my version.

"Mediterranean" Mushroom stuffed peppers (in case every recipe needs a name)
Olive oil
3/4 C chopped onion. I really don't know how much I used. I had half a large onion and used all of that. Whatever. Recipes are suggestions, dammit!
salt
pepper
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t garlic powder (I wanted to mince some real garlic for this, but I forgot)
8 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
8 oz fresh mushrooms
handful of parsley, chopped to bits
1 generous C long-grain brown rice (because I had slightly more than 1 C left). Her version soaks the rice for 15 minutes. I had mine in a bowl for closer to 20, but given the amount of liquid involved, I'm not sure the soaking is really necessary. Experiment at your discretion.
1/2 t paprika
8 oz can tomato sauce (she uses 3 T. What do you do with the rest of the can?)
3/4 C chicken broth
6 bell peppers, tops and ribs removed

• Heat the oil in a big, deep skillet. cook the onions in there until they turn translucent. Dump in the meat and season with salt, pepper, allspice, and garlic powder. Caveat: I only said "1/2 t" because she did. When I made it, I didn't measure the onion, salt, pepper, garlic, allspice, parsley, or paprika. If I did measure, it was all by eyeball, and I purposely overshot on all seasonings because I like strong flavors. Do what you will.
• Cook the beef. Stir in the mushrooms and chop at them a little with the spatula, because small pieces pack more easily into the peppers. Don't go too crazy--you still want to taste the mushroomy goodness (Cindy, I'm looking at you). Stir in the chickpeas and cook a couple minutes.
• Add the parsley, rice, paprika, and broth. I messed up a little here. Her recipe said "add the water," and I looked up and saw "3/4 C broth (or water)" in the ingredients, so I dumped in the broth. Then I saw "2 1/4 C water" listed a little higher. I left it alone with my extra tomato sauce, and nothing bad happened! Plus, I didn't have to simmer the damn thing another twenty minutes while all that liquid cooked off. Anyway. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20 minutes. You want the rice to be cooked.
• While that simmers, cut off the tops of the peppers and scrape out the insides. If you think this is tedious work, imagine scooping the glop out of a pumpkin so some thankless kid can have all the fun of carving it, and it will feel like a breeze (next month: pumpkin pie!) I cut down from the top on five of my peppers because I wanted them to hold together better, and contain more Stuff, but one of them had a nasty spot on the top, so I had to slice straight across for that one. It slimed me. It was gross.
• Stand the peppers up in a baking dish (my 11x7 was a perfect fit). Pack them full of tasty stuffing. (Has anyone tried stuffing stuffed peppers with stuffing? Thanksgiving style? The sausage kind? WHY THE HELL NOT??) Pour water into the baking dish (NOT into the peppers) 3/4 to 1 inch deep.
• Have you pre-heated the oven to 350F? No? Go back in time and do that.
• Tightly cover the baking dish with foil and bake for... I don't know. Half an hour? Everything inside the peppers is cooked, so you really only want to get the peppers softened. Do what you want.
• She suggested serving with Greek yogurt. We just had normal (plain) yogurt. It helped. I think sour cream would be fine, too.

One more note: She grills her peppers. I didn't. Because we only have a Foreman-style grill, and that just won't work. In the past, I boiled the peppers a little to soften and pre-cook them. This time I stuffed raw peppers and baked them 30 minutes. They were tender enough to eat, but firm enough that the Chief Taster used a knife to cut hers apart. I still had no complaints, and she reported high success on the recipe.

No food porn this week. I'm tired of making really good food in my fun-size kitchen and then getting shitty photos because there's only one crappy light fixture which casts shadows on EVERYTHING I DO. You want food porn, go look at the link. There's a dozen pictures of the same damn peppers. At least show the different steps, woman!