Stuff it and the Mother of invention...

I love jalapeno poppers… And as much as it is against
my principles to pay 50 cent and up for each of them at the deli,
I do treat myself to them on occasion. .

But being I am back on my diet because I gained 6 pounds
over the holidays, poppers are soooooooooooo not right,
on my diet and besides, surely I can do it cheaper than 50 cents
each.

So I looked for a non fried (as the ones in the deli are fried
with coating) and the least amount of damage to me.
I looked online for baked stuffed jalapenos and found a few.
I read thru them and figured out what I wanted to do… (who
needs directions)

I bought 5 medium size jalapenos. I wanted to start small just
incase this fell on its face. I saw that there was a cream cheese
with Italian spices, so got that for a back up, and got the regular
type of cream cheese but the 70% less fat type. I had a package
of chourico (for the non Portuguese, this is a Portuguese sausage
that is to die for).

I cooked up the chourico, by slicing long ways… then I peeled./cut
off the skin. And mashed it with a fork. I added the cream cheese,
mixing until it blended really well…

Then I got out my gloves and started to work on the peppers. It
is suggested by any recipe you ever use with jalapeno peppers.
In case you are thinking of passing it by…DON’T… GET THE GLOVES.
And DON’T SCRATCH YOUR NOSE, OR ANY PART OF OUR YOUR
FACE. If you can’t stand it, take off gloves, scratch, and get new gloves.
I am telling you from experience… DON’T.. it is hard to do a recipe
thru burning body part and tears. I found out when making Jalapeno
Jelly.

I cut off the end, by the stem, as close as I could. Then ran the
knife around inside to remove the string stuff and seeds.. Ran it around
several times… thumped the pepper end on the plate (you don’t want
your cutting board with pepper juice). After I washed the insides of the
peppers to get rid of any hidden seeds. Unless you want them really
hot, get rid of all the seeds. I was starting out with mild to medium in
my mind.

Then take the pepper in one hand and pick up cream cheese mix and
stuff pepper… If you want to make it easier on yourself.. (I did by the second
pepper) get a sandwich bag…put cream cheese mix in there… squeeze
until you have it all down into one corner.. then snip a very small hole in the
corner.. Wa..La.. a stuffer bag… Have a small blade knife near by. Stuff
the pepper, use the knife to take the air out of pepper.

Laid them down one by one in your Pam sprayed pan. Cook for 25 minutes.
Or until the pepper is cooked.


Some good tips.. I looked at the recipes online again to find out the amount
of time… First off, I found they cheated.. they sliced the pepper and stuffed it.
And some of them used a tooth pick to put them back together.
And… they have some, where they cooked the pepper first.. then stuffed them.
I think that is a good idea… because I had to leave mine in 10 more minutes to
get the peppers cooked. They looked just fine after the 20 minutes.. but the
pepper weren’t cooked… So after 10 more minutes, I ended up with this…

I will update this, when I try again.. in a couple of weeks…
I say a couple of weeks…because I tasted one of these…when they cooled
down some.. AND HOLY MOTHER OF GAWD!!! THEY ARE HOT… day later and my mouth
hasn’t recovered..I feel like I have Angelina Jolie lips... so much for mild … maybe if you precook the peppers, it takes some of the spice heat out of it.

Or maybe I should let it go, like I did the latte machine.. I bought one, used
it for 3 months.. couldn’t get them to taste like the latte shops, gave away
the machine… and buy at the shop… so maybe I might… well, I will try
one more time anyway.. but might have to swallow my pride and buy at
the deli.. wish they had baked ones.

UPDATE... 1-28-2012

SECOND TIME IS THE CHARM........ I tried this again.... but this time I precooked the peppers in the microwave for 3 minutes.

And then I added the mix... of cream cheese and Chorizo meat... stuffed them, put them back in the micro and wa-la... stuffed jalapeno peppers... little crunchy, a little hot, but doesn't take your head off.