Basically, pepper steak and swiss steak are the same thing, but pepper steak uses a brown gravy and swiss steak uses a tomato based sauce.
Take your meat and slice it into about quarter inch thick pieces. Chop up an onion and some green and red bell peppers. Put a little EVOO in your skillet and add the veggies. You can also add some minced or crushed garlic if you would like. Once the veggies are almost cooked, add in your meat, and brown it all the way through. As its browning, season to taste with salt, pepper, etc. once brown, take the meat and veggies out of the pan, but leave the drippings, that will be the base to your sauce.
Pepper Steak: You can either make a gravy from scratch, if thats how you do it, or use jarred or packet gravy. Season the gravy with as much black pepper as you can handle. Add it to the drippings, bring to a slight boil, and then add your meat and veggies back into it.
Swiss Steak: Stir in a can of tomato sauce, some Italian Seasoning blend and a little bit of flour. You want the consistency to be a little thick, but not hella, and you dont want it to be runny either. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes, and then add your meat and veggies back to it. You don’t want the sauce to be too overwhelmingly tomato-ey, though, so you might want to add salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder to cut the flavor a little bit.
Stir til the gravy or sauce coats the meat, cover with a lid, turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for about 30-45 minutes. The longer you let it cook, the more tender the meat will get.
The bell peppers are not required for the Swiss Steak, but I like the flavor they give off, and it helps to cut the tomato flavor a little bit.
Serve it over rice, or mashed potatoes.