Instructions: Bell peppers may be natures perfect containers. Though most other vegetables have to be hollowed out or scooped clean before they can hold anything, bell peppers are like soda cans: Pop the top and youre practically ready to go.

Once youve sliced, diced, chopped and pureed more peppers than you thought possible, do what creative cooks around the world do: stuff them. With each variation in stuffing and seasoning, bell peppers take on a new culinary identity.

Chinese cooks, for example, cut bell peppers into bite-size pieces to be eaten with chopsticks. Then, they combine the peppers with ground pork. A lighter alternative is to pair peppers with a ginger-spiked shrimp mousse.

In Middle Eastern kitchens, whole peppers are stuffed with ground lamb or an onion-rice mixture. My variation includes both meat and rice, but keeps the traditional seasonings of allspice and cinnamon. These sweet spices go particularly well with green bells.

Move to kitchens in the American Southwest and youll find bell peppers stuffed with another pre-Columbian vegetable, corn. The flavor is mild, so if you like more of a kick, add canned diced green chilies instead of green beans.

You can also use canned nopales.

Peppers vary greatly in size and weight; an average bell pepper weighs 6 to 8 ounces and holds about 1 cup of filling. If you plan to stuff whole peppers, look for those with a boxy shape so they will stand upright when you bake them.

Each of my recipes suggests a bell pepper to use, but you can mix and match the fillings with green, red, yellow or orange bells as you like. Avoid purple bell peppers, which fade to khaki when heated.

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