Today's recipe for Jalapeno Poppers is one I made up. You can find recipes for these little poppers all over the internet, so I just decided to try them myself. We didn't get much rain here in our area of Minnesota this summer, so the jalapeno pepper plants in our garden went crazy - I guess they like it hot and dry! We counted 138 peppers harvested from 4 plants, with at least 20 more out there to pick if we don't get frost first. We've never had that many before! I've made 2 quarts and 6 pints of Pickled Jalapenos and have already put some in the freezer, so for something a little different, I decided to try to make these poppers. This is NOT something Grandma would have made. In fact, this isn't something I would make too often. I'm not a fan of hot peppers, and neither are my daughters. We girls have the Scandinavian palate that doesn't take too kindly to the heat of said peppers. The boys are a different matter. My husband and my son both love them, and that's really who I made these poppers for.
Here is the recipe as I made it:
Jalapeno Poppers
I started with 8 large peppers, then washed and dried them (I had to add 4-5 more peppers to use up all the filling).
I mixed together:
8 ounces of cream cheese
8 ounces of shredded cheddar (I had some white cheddar, so that's what I used)
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
I was planning on piping the filling in, but it was pretty thick.
I cut the peppers in half and removed the pith and seeds. You can leave them in for more heat, if you want to, but I took them out. If the peppers bother your skin (like they do mine), use gloves or what I use is a plastic sandwich bag (like a glove) over my left hand and keep the knife in my right hand.
The filling was so thick, I used my hands to roll logs (like with Play-Doh), and laid the log right in the half of pepper.
Wrap each pepper with a half of a slice of bacon. They stay together better if you can try to get the ends to stay under the pepper.
I put the peppers on a baking sheet after putting them together- then they go into the freezer to firm up for about an hour.
After they're firmed up, the peppers go into zip-top freezer bags and into the freezer for when we need a snack for a football game or movie night. Don't forget to label the bags and if you can, put the baking instructions right on there.
When ready to bake the poppers, I took them right out of the freezer and put them onto a baking sheet. Into the oven they went at 450 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Well - I think I might have filled the peppers too full of filling! They overflowed a bit, but that didn't change how good they are!
Oh my gosh - they smelled amazing while baking!
The boys loved these poppers - the girls didn't. They were pretty spicy! They are so easy to make and so handy to have ready whenever you need them - football game, movie night, tv binging, Tuesday night. Pull them out of the freezer and get them into the oven - easy peasy! If you have an abundance of jalapenos this year, you might want to try to make some of these spicy Jalapeno Poppers for all of your hot pepper lovers!
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