Jalapeno and Bacon Poppers

As usual, its been awhile since I've posted.  Yeah yeah...I know.  I think i'm just going to stop apologizing for the huge gaps in between my posts b/c it seems to be how I've started every one lately.

That being said, here is a quick little recipe that will serve you well for any football tailgates/parties or holiday entertaining you might be doing over the next few weeks or couple of months.  (I DO plan on doing at least one holiday cooking post though!)

These jalapeno bacon poppers are AWESOME and so easy to make, by the way.

Go ahead and pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Now let's get started guttin' those jalapenos. Medium to large sized ones will work best.  Next, I would put on some gloves.  I used to not wear them but after the pickling incident, I always wear gloves when working with peppers.

Slice them in half and using your thumb scrap out the membrane and seeds.

Once you've gotten them all cleaned out, take a small spoon and scoop out a good sized portion of cream cheese.  (You can use either the tub or a block of it.  It doesn't matter.  I just had a block on hand.)

Drag the spoon along the edge of the jalapeno so the cream cheese fills it in.  (This process is not the neatest one in the world and a lot of times I end up helping smoosh the cream cheese into the cavity with my fingers.  But not to worry, soon it will all be covered up with a tasty bacon wrapping and no one will care.)

Speaking of bacon...next, you'll want to slice your bacon strips in half.

Before we wrap these little guys up in their bacon-y blankets, Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet.  This is where they are gonna hang out while in the oven.

Now we wrap!  Now the jalapenos I used were kind of on the large size and needed two halves of a slice of bacon.  Feel free to adjust the bacon coverage for your tastes and jalapeno sizes.

I start with one end in the middle of the filling and the other end normally goes perfectly around it.  If this isn't the case for you, use toothpicks to secure the bacon to the jalapenos.  I would probably do that either way b/c I made them yesterday sans toothpicks and the bacon tended to curl up and or off of the jalapenos.

Once they are all wrapped up, pop them into the oven for 22-27 minutes depending on how crispy you want the bacon and how roasted you want the jalapenos.  I think I did 27 minutes for these guys.  Next time, I might even try it a little longer b/c I am a crispy bacon fanatic!

Let them cool for a few minutes after removing them from the oven.  They will be EXTREMELY HOT!  The roof of my mouth can vouch for that!  They are equally as good hot as they are room temperature!

Here are a few tweak I thought of as I ate the leftovers for lunch today:

- blue cheese crumbles as a filling

- serve with ranch or blue cheese as a dipping sauce

-  some sort of sweet dipping sauce would be good too, but I'd need to think on that one a little more.

Enjoy!

Jalapeno-Bacon Poppers

Ingredients:

jalapenos

cream cheese

bacon

Directions:

Preheat over to 375 degrees.

Slice jalapenos in half, length-wise. 

Using your thumb or a spoon remove the seeds and membranes from inside the jalapenos. 

Smoosh softened cream cheese into each of the jalapeno halves. 

Wrap jalapeno with bacon slices. (Use a toothpick to secure the bacon, if necessary).

Place on a cooling rack on a baking sheet and bake for 22-27 minutes.  If the bacon isn't crispy enough increase the time a little or turn on the broiler.  If you decide to use the broiler at the end, watch them closely.  The broiler will do its job fast!

Serve hot, or  at room temperature.

Hot Pepper Jelly

A little back story first:
I'm trying out some different recipes for Christmas gifts.  I'm kind of shooting myself in the foot if I go into too much detail b/c i don't want everyone to know what they are getting from me for Christmas, so let's just say I'm seeing what's good and how much of the good stuff certain recipes make.  Yes, I'm already thinking about Christmas presents, but when you don't plan on buying stuff for people and instead are making their presents, you kind of have to plan ahead.

So with that said, today I made Hot Pepper Jelly.  What on earth do I do with Hot Pepper Jelly, you may ask yourself?  Well personally I dump the jar onto a big ole' hunk of cream cheese and dig in with some crackers.  It's an EXCELLENT appetizer and super easy to do...especially if someone else gives you the jelly. lol

The recipe I'm using comes from the St. Michael's and All Angels Cookbook. This was the parish I grew up in located just outside Stone Mountain Village and right down the street from my elementary school.  The recipe comes from a lady named, Cynthia Sutton and while I don't know who she is, Mom said she had wonderful recipes and that she was sure this one was equally as good.  If memory serves, she said something along the lines of "Ooh its a Cynthia Sutton recipe!" :)

Ok enough rambling, onto the good stuff.

First off: your canning jars.  You will need 5 8oz. jars.  Wash them and then put into a hot water bath.  I usually fill the jars with some water so that they won't float.

Bring the water to a boil while making the actual jelly.  They will be nice and hot by the time the jelly is ready to be put into them.

Take 1 large bell pepper (any color will do, but I used green b/c i'm poor and they are cheap.), cut the top off, remove the seeds and quarter.  You want the actual quantity of bell pepper to equal 1 1/2 cups.  Toss into the food processor or blender.

Next, take your jalapenos (fresh from my garden or your's or your grocery store), chop off the tops, slice in half length-wise, remove the seeds and measure out a 1/2 cup (add more or less for varying degrees of heat) and add to the bell pepper in the food processor.

Grind up the peppers until they look like this:

Transfer the pepper mixture (juices and all) into a large pot and then add 6 1/2 cups of sugar, a pinch of salt and 1 1/2 cups of white distilled vinegar.

Stir the mixture well, bring to a brisk boil and then boil for 3 minutes.  DO NOT WALK AWAY FROM THE STOVE WHILE THIS IS GOING ON!  I made the mistake of leaving to do a tiny bit of vacuuming, only to return to it boiling over and it smelling oddly-enough like burnt marshmallows.  (Burnt sugar is burnt sugar, yes?)  This is also why they are no pictures of the mixture boiling...priorities.

After the mixture boils for 3 minutes (hopefully, without incident...)  Now this is where I got confused a little and I'm hoping it doesn't effect my end product.  The recipe calls for "1 bottle of Certo", which I found when I Wally World, but it was SUPER pricey ($6.00+ for a 2 pack) compared to a big packet of instant fruit pectin (97 cents).  So I read both packages and came to the conclusion that one bottle and one packet made the same amount of end product and I went with the packet. (I had a tiny bit leftover after filling the jars and I put it into a clean jar without a lid, just so I could taste it after it firmed up.  It seems to firming just fine - so I'm guessing everything went correctly with the  fruit pectin .)

***UPDATE***
Monday, Aug 22
I'm now under the impression that the one packet of fruit pectin wasn't enough.  After sitting out for several hours to cool and firm, the jelly was still rather fluid, so i'm not going to cheap out next time, and i'll be buying the actual Certo.  Oh well, live and learn right?!
**************

So add the bottle of Certo and continue to boil for one more minute.

Remove the pot from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.

Your jelly jars should be nice and hot now.  Use tongs to remove one from the water and then use a baster or ladle to put the liquid jelly into the jar.  Next screw on the lid and set aside.  Continue this until all the jars are filled and lidded.

If you want the jelly to be more of that neon green color, I would add some green food coloring or food gel to the jelly after removing it from the heat, but i'm fine with the natural color.

The jelly is still cooling in its jars so I haven't tried it yet, which I guess isn't a very good thing to do.  I probably should have waited to try it before I went and posted about it - but nothing ventured nothing gained. I have FAITH that it will be tasty and if it isn't... well I'll have some ideas that might make it that way.

Fingers Crossed!!

------------------------------------------------------------------

Hot Pepper Jelly

by: Cynthia Sutton

yields: 5 8oz. jars.

5 8oz. Bell jars

1 1/2 cups bell pepper (any color)

1/2 cup of jalapenos (fresh)

6 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups of white distilled vinegar

1 bottle of Certo or one packet of instant fruit pectin (should say on the package that it's good for 5 8oz. servings)

pinch of salt

Grind peppers in blender or food processor. Mix peppers, sugar, salt and vinegar into a large pot.  Bring to a brisk boil.  Boil for 3 minutes.  Add Certo/Fruit Pectin and boil for an additional minute.

Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.  Pour into hot, sterilized jars and seal.

Coconut Shrimp with Apricot- Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce

My dad wanted me to make that coconut shrimp i made right before i started this blog, so i did. And this is a remarkably simple recipe to make, but no one has to know that. All they'll know is they're eating awesome coconut shrimp that you SLAVED over. lol

First, you want to get your battering station ready:

a bowl with 1 cup flour
a bowl with 1 egg (lightly beaten)
a bowl with 1 cup panko bread crumbs and 1 cup shredded coconut



Then just dredge the shrimp in the flour, dip the shrimp into the egg and into the panko and coconut mixture. I did this while heating up the peanut oil i used to fry them.


I need to make a comment about the shrimp here though. The first time i made this recipe i used fresh shrimp with the tails on from the grocery store; they were specifically bought for the making of this recipe. This time though - i didn't have the resources - and already had a bag of frozen Costco shrimp in the freezer... i know, i know... get off my back. lol

Anyway - i found that you really want the bigger, prettier shrimp for this recipe. You need more actual shrimp surface area in order to get more shrimp taste and less coating. Don't get me wrong, they were still very good - just not as good as the first time around.

Now onto the dipping sauce:

2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
1 tablespoon apricot preserves

Mix them up well and serve with them skrimps like so!

I served them with a romaine lettuce salad with carrots, cheese, egg and some slivered almonds. It was a good meal and very easy to make! YUM SHRIMP!

Ricotta-Stuffed Bacon-Wrapped Dates

Recipe courtesy Dave Lieberman

Ingredients:
1 pound (about 12 to 13 slices) bacon
25 Medjool dates (about 3/4 pound)
1/3 cup ricotta cheese

Special Equipment: toothpicks, a bamboo skewer for removing pits


Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Cut the bacon in half lengthwise to make twice as many slices. Set aside.

To remove the pits from the dates, cut the tips off each end of the dates and insert the flat end of the skewer until it pushes the pit out of the date. Repeat with remaining dates. [i didn't use a skewer. I used a metal chopstick. Anything narrow and pointy will work]

Place the ricotta in the bottom corner of a strong plastic bag and seal tightly. Use scissors to cut a small hole in the tip of 1 of the corners. Now use the bag like a piping bag to fill the dates with the cheese. [i felt SO professional doing this lol]

Wrap the ricotta stuffed dates with a slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick through the belly of the date.

Arrange all the prepared dates on an aluminum foil covered baking sheet, allowing at least a little space between each one for good browning. [I used the foil for easy clean up]

Roast for 15 to 20 minutes or until bacon is browned and crispy. Remove from the baking sheet and gently remove toothpicks.

Serve immediately!

COMMENTS: These were very good as well, but you really could only eat a few at a sitting. I actually ate a couple yesterday and i think they're better the NEXT day b/c the sweetness of the dates is mellowed slightly by being wrapped in all that bacony-goodness for 24 hours. lol