Thursday, November 08, 2007

Baked Jalapeno Peppers

I hate my camera with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. After carefully documenting each step of this recipe with pictures, the crappy picture below is the only one not blurry. Perhaps I should start drawing pictures of the food I cook. Couldn't be any worse.

So, stuffed jalapeno peppers! Scott loves 'em, and I do too, but they are so much fuss. And I hate frying them, it always makes a mess.

There's a fantastic grocery store here in town that has a sale table tucked away in the back. Scott bought a pack of jalapenos for 99 cents so what could we do? At those prices how can you not make stuffed jalapenos?

I haven't made jalapenos for ages. The last time I made them they were atomically hot. I don't know if I didn't do a good enough job getting the seeds and membranes out or if they were just peppers from hell, but they were inedible and we had to toss them. I HATE having to throw out food.

So I tried a couple of tips I found on the Internet to reduce the heat in the peppers. By golly, they worked!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After cutting the peppers in half and scraping out the seeds and white membrane soak the peppers in ice water for 30 minutes. Then bake them at 350' for 20 minutes. Let them cool while you make the filling.

Mix equal parts of cream cheese and any shredded cheese (I used a combo of cheddar and provolone) and season well with salt and pepper.

When the peppers are cool stuff the peppers with the cheese mixture and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so until nice and firm.

Preheat the oven to 400'.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place one or two egg whites (depending on how many peppers you're cooking) in a shallow bowl and beat lightly. In a second bowl empty an envelope of Shake and Bake (original or crispy are best). Take a pepper, dip briefly in the egg white, roll in the shake and bake and then place on the baking sheet.

Repeat will all the peppers, then bake for 15 minutes, or until brown and crispy. Remove from the oven, and let sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.



Told you it was a bad picture!

These are fabulous - wayyyyy better than our other recipe. The extra time with the soaking, prebaking and chilling to totally worth it.

Gotta run - still haven't found my camera yet. You never know, my idle threat about drawing pictures of food to accompany my posts may not be so idle.....

11 comments:

Patricia Scarpin said...

Sara, I have never had jalapenos and the photo made me even more curious and eager to try them!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Did you just cobble this together? Sara I have to try this. I sounds fantastic! Bake not fried . . .wow!

Deborah said...

I have a love/hate relationship with my camera, so I feel your pain!!

I love stuffed jalepenos, but have never made them myself. I really want to try this recipe! My mom makes some that are wrapped in bacon and then cooked, but last time she made them, they jalepenos she had were so hot that I only took one bite and couldn't feel my mouth the rest of the night!!

Deborah Dowd said...

If you could take pictures that capture how good the food was, then you'd be a photographer! These look and sound delicious.

Anonymous said...

doesnt look bad at all, still looked appetizing

DANIELLE said...

Great recipe! I'll have to try them the next time we have a Sunday Sports afternoon.

Brilynn said...

I thought that when I got my new camera my pictures would improve, instead I wanted to resort to drawing my food too. Then I see a blog like Lobstersquad and realize I can't possibly compete with that and slink back to my blurry photos...

I've never made stuffed jalapenos, I should.

Deborah said...

I feel the camera pain, two. I have an older 3.1 mexapixel, and my sister just got a fancy SLR. Jealousy runs rampant.

These peppers still look awesome, though!

test it comm said...

These sounds really good!

Anonymous said...

Oh heck, I'm going to have to buy some jalapenos now .. even though you don't like the photo, I think they look great!

Unknown said...

WOW! Those were so yummy! The only thing I will say is wear gloves when you make these. We will definatly have these again. Loved them.

Christie