Jalapeno Poppers

Friday afternoon I made 100 jalapeno pepper poppers, or as I call them "half poppers." I also made salsa but that's another post. I planted nine plants this spring, so I would have plenty peppers to make these poppers to put in the freezer to enjoy on the weekends this winter. They can be fairly expensive from the grocery store and even more so when you order them out. In fact, we were out to dinner last night at our favorite local pub and they were on the nightly "specials" list for $4.95 for five whole poppers. Even though mine are half-poppers I probably use twice as much cheese that you would get in a whole one.

I used a base recipe that I found here and I modified it a little. I did not use bacon bits, but I added a little garlic and onion powder. You can really modify it to your liking as long as your ratio of cream cheese to a drier cheese is appropriate for molding. If you do not have enough cream cheese then it is difficult to keep the mixture together enough to stay in the jalapeno half. Also, since my peppers were homegrown without chemicals in Ohio, they were smaller than what you would may find in your supermarket. This means that I used more peppers, about 25 per recipe instead of the listed 12. (I doubled the recipe since I had 50 peppers to use.)

MY RECIPE INGREDIENTS: 50 small jalapeno peppers, 16 oz. cream cheese (2 blocks), 12 oz. (3 cups) sharp cheddar cheese, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. onion powder, 2 cups milk (for dipping), 2+ cups flour (for rolling), 2+ cups bread crumbs, oil for when you are ready to fry

Step 1: Put on latex or kitchen gloves!!! You will regret this if you do not wear gloves the entire time.

Step 2: Wash your peppers.

Step 3: Cut off the top, cut in half lengthwise, and remove seeds.

Step 4: Stuff your pepper halves with the cheese mixture.

Step 5: Dip into milk, roll in the flower, then place on plate to dry for 10 minutes.

Step 6: Dip into milk, roll in the breadcrumbs (I used seasoned), then place on plate to dry 10 minutes.

Step 7: Place in one layer in freezer bags set on cookie sheet and put in freezer. Once they are frozen you can remove the cookie sheet.

Step 8: When you're ready for a snack, remove as many as you are in the mood for and fry at 365 °F. Even if you want to eat them right away, I would freeze them first to harden up the cheese enough to withstand the heat of the oil (preventing premature oozing).