cornbread-stuffed poblanos

This is short and simple. It's fall, which means it's time to make chili. I am not going to share my chili recipe with you. I want to keep that to myself. People have chili they make and like and I'm going to keep my best-ever chili a secret.

But I did want to share with you a very simple side we paired with our chili this year, using some of the peppers from our garden...and then, when those ran out, peppers we bought to make this again.

It's basically cornbread in poblano peppers with cheese. The poblanos are not very spicy, but have a nice kick around the cornbread. If you don't need recipes, that's all you need to know. Go make it and be very happy. For everyone else, here's how it goes:

Ingredients

- about 8 poblano peppers
- cornbread mix
- milk and egg
(per the mix)
- shredded cheese
(I had cheddar jack.
Pepper jack would, perhaps,
send you straight into euphoria.)


Preparation

- Make the cornbread mix however the box says to do it. Or be a purist and make your own from scratch, but I think some things taste just great from a box and this is one of them.
- Cut the tops off the poblanos and pull out the center. (If your hands are sensitive to hot pepper seeds, these will maybe bother you a bit. My hands are REALLY sensitive, but the heat of these was merely noticable. Jalepenos, on the other hand, nearly send me to the ER in pain.)
- Sprinkle in the cheese.
- Spoon in the cornbread mix, filling each pepper about 1/3 full.
- Layer more cheese
- Spoon in more cornbread mix until the pepper is 2/3 full.

- Place the filled peppers in a muffin tin. (No need to spray.)
- Bake according to the directions on the cornbread.
- Sprinkle cheese on top with about 2 minutes bake time remaining.

There are only 6 peppers in this photo, because that's all we had at the time. But we had left-over mix, so I'm guessing this serves 8.

...Unless you like them as much as I do. Then they serve about 3. Enjoy!

cornbread-stuffed poblanos

This is short and simple. It's fall, which means it's time to make chili. I am not going to share my chili recipe with you. I want to keep that to myself. People have chili they make and like and I'm going to keep my best-ever chili a secret.

But I did want to share with you a very simple side we paired with our chili this year, using some of the peppers from our garden...and then, when those ran out, peppers we bought to make this again.

It's basically cornbread in poblano peppers with cheese. The poblanos are not very spicy, but have a nice kick around the cornbread. If you don't need recipes, that's all you need to know. Go make it and be very happy. For everyone else, here's how it goes:

Ingredients

- about 8 poblano peppers
- cornbread mix
- milk and egg
(per the mix)
- shredded cheese
(I had cheddar jack.
Pepper jack would, perhaps,
send you straight into euphoria.)


Preparation

- Make the cornbread mix however the box says to do it. Or be a purist and make your own from scratch, but I think some things taste just great from a box and this is one of them.
- Cut the tops off the poblanos and pull out the center. (If your hands are sensitive to hot pepper seeds, these will maybe bother you a bit. My hands are REALLY sensitive, but the heat of these was merely noticable. Jalepenos, on the other hand, nearly send me to the ER in pain.)
- Sprinkle in the cheese.
- Spoon in the cornbread mix, filling each pepper about 1/3 full.
- Layer more cheese
- Spoon in more cornbread mix until the pepper is 2/3 full.

- Place the filled peppers in a muffin tin. (No need to spray.)
- Bake according to the directions on the cornbread.
- Sprinkle cheese on top with about 2 minutes bake time remaining.

There are only 6 peppers in this photo, because that's all we had at the time. But we had left-over mix, so I'm guessing this serves 8.

...Unless you like them as much as I do. Then they serve about 3. Enjoy!

It's ALL about the pumpkin!!!

Well, I was supposed to start this off with a video of our flashing family of carved pumpkins but the format of my camera's videos doesn't seem to work here!! So, albeit bummed, I will continue with the posting (but dang it, those pumpkins were cool!!)

This time of year is one of our favorites - warm days, chilly nights, fires in the fireplace and everything popping with gorgeous colors. We live in the Blue Ridge mountains and the changing of the leaves is, most years, spectacular. And we spend lots of time outdoors.



And there is an abundance of fall produce around here. Lots of pumpkins. So in addition to getting pumpkins to carve, I got one to cook. I decided to make one of our favorite types of food - Thai, but instead of using sweet potatoes or butternut squash, I am going to use pumpkin!! Not quite a seasonal tradition, but yummy nonetheless.

This is a Thai style soup that incorporates the pumpkin with a mild curry coconut broth. It is amazingly light, but filling and warming. So, what you will need first and foremost ....... a pumpkin.



And to go along with the pumpkin you will need the following:

1 onion, diced
1 tomato diced (this is one of the last of the year from the garden)
2-3 carrots, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tsp grated ginger
4 cups vegetable broth
1 can light coconut milk
1 can Coconut water (Goya)
1 small stalk lemon grass (we grow this since it is hard to find around here)
1 tsp cumin
2-3 tsp mild curry paste (Pataks)
1 fresh chili pepper (I used cayenne, but you can use a Serrano or jalapeno or any chili you like)
1 Tbsp olive oil
Lime juice
Salt and pepper
Cilantro for garnish

You can also add a number of things to vary this soup - beans, rice, noodles, tofu, etc. I had some leftover black beans so decide to use them too.



Preheat your oven to 375F, and then attack the pumpkin - cut in half and scrape all the insides out - save the seeds to roast and munch on later. Cut the halves into 1" slices and lay on a cookie sheet sprayed with some spray oil. Pop in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until tender.



While the pumpkin is baking, dice up the onion, garlic and carrots. Cut the lemon grass into 3" pieces and smash with the flat side of your knife. Place the veggies and olive oil in a soup pot and saute until tender. Add in the ginger (I use the prepared stuff in a tube) and cumin and cook a few minutes more. Add the broth, tomato (diced), lemongrass, curry paste, and coconut water. Let simmer slowly while the pumpkin bakes.



Once the pumpkin is done, let cool just a bit and then remove all the skin from the slices, it peels off very easily.



I had way too much pumpkin for the soup at this point - so used about 2 cups of the cooked pumpkin. Once the skin is removed, dice the slices into small cubes.




Place about half the cubed pumpkin into the soup pot. Fish around and remove the stalks of lemon grass and then blend the soup - either with an immersion blender (I love this gadget!!!) or place in a blender.



Once blended, add in the remaining pumpkin cubes, the lite coconut milk, a bit of lime juice to taste, the thinly sliced hot pepper, and any other items you like (this is where I added the black beans). Let simmer for about 10-15 minutes more, adjust salt and pepper to taste.



So here is our soup - plain for the kids and garnished with more hot peppers and chili oil for Todd, and with chili oil and cilantro for me. Open face sandwiches round out the meal.



But I still had the rest of the pumpkin staring at me unhappily....... Hmmmm......



So to keep it company I pulled out a couple of apples, some instant oatmeal packets, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, sugar and margarine. The pumpkin I cut into cubes just as for the soup, and the apples peeled and diced. I had some Craisins as well and tossed them in.



This was then mixed with some cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg, some sugar and honey. I just did all this to taste. And when it all tasted good I poured it into a "margarined" baking dish.



The packets of instant oatmeal were mixed with some margarine to make a crumble (I ended up using 3 packets) and spread over the top.



Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to an hour until bubbly and golden brown. In the meantime, find out that the Wizard of Oz is on TV and settle in to watch.

We had to send the kids to bed before this was done - but they were promised they could have some for breakfast!!

So here it is, breakfast!!! And this was almost better than the soup.

It's ALL about the pumpkin!!!

Well, I was supposed to start this off with a video of our flashing family of carved pumpkins but the format of my camera's videos doesn't seem to work here!! So, albeit bummed, I will continue with the posting (but dang it, those pumpkins were cool!!)

This time of year is one of our favorites - warm days, chilly nights, fires in the fireplace and everything popping with gorgeous colors. We live in the Blue Ridge mountains and the changing of the leaves is, most years, spectacular. And we spend lots of time outdoors.



And there is an abundance of fall produce around here. Lots of pumpkins. So in addition to getting pumpkins to carve, I got one to cook. I decided to make one of our favorite types of food - Thai, but instead of using sweet potatoes or butternut squash, I am going to use pumpkin!! Not quite a seasonal tradition, but yummy nonetheless.

This is a Thai style soup that incorporates the pumpkin with a mild curry coconut broth. It is amazingly light, but filling and warming. So, what you will need first and foremost ....... a pumpkin.



And to go along with the pumpkin you will need the following:

1 onion, diced
1 tomato diced (this is one of the last of the year from the garden)
2-3 carrots, diced
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tsp grated ginger
4 cups vegetable broth
1 can light coconut milk
1 can Coconut water (Goya)
1 small stalk lemon grass (we grow this since it is hard to find around here)
1 tsp cumin
2-3 tsp mild curry paste (Pataks)
1 fresh chili pepper (I used cayenne, but you can use a Serrano or jalapeno or any chili you like)
1 Tbsp olive oil
Lime juice
Salt and pepper
Cilantro for garnish

You can also add a number of things to vary this soup - beans, rice, noodles, tofu, etc. I had some leftover black beans so decide to use them too.



Preheat your oven to 375F, and then attack the pumpkin - cut in half and scrape all the insides out - save the seeds to roast and munch on later. Cut the halves into 1" slices and lay on a cookie sheet sprayed with some spray oil. Pop in the oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until tender.



While the pumpkin is baking, dice up the onion, garlic and carrots. Cut the lemon grass into 3" pieces and smash with the flat side of your knife. Place the veggies and olive oil in a soup pot and saute until tender. Add in the ginger (I use the prepared stuff in a tube) and cumin and cook a few minutes more. Add the broth, tomato (diced), lemongrass, curry paste, and coconut water. Let simmer slowly while the pumpkin bakes.



Once the pumpkin is done, let cool just a bit and then remove all the skin from the slices, it peels off very easily.



I had way too much pumpkin for the soup at this point - so used about 2 cups of the cooked pumpkin. Once the skin is removed, dice the slices into small cubes.




Place about half the cubed pumpkin into the soup pot. Fish around and remove the stalks of lemon grass and then blend the soup - either with an immersion blender (I love this gadget!!!) or place in a blender.



Once blended, add in the remaining pumpkin cubes, the lite coconut milk, a bit of lime juice to taste, the thinly sliced hot pepper, and any other items you like (this is where I added the black beans). Let simmer for about 10-15 minutes more, adjust salt and pepper to taste.



So here is our soup - plain for the kids and garnished with more hot peppers and chili oil for Todd, and with chili oil and cilantro for me. Open face sandwiches round out the meal.



But I still had the rest of the pumpkin staring at me unhappily....... Hmmmm......



So to keep it company I pulled out a couple of apples, some instant oatmeal packets, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, sugar and margarine. The pumpkin I cut into cubes just as for the soup, and the apples peeled and diced. I had some Craisins as well and tossed them in.



This was then mixed with some cinnamon, a grating of nutmeg, some sugar and honey. I just did all this to taste. And when it all tasted good I poured it into a "margarined" baking dish.



The packets of instant oatmeal were mixed with some margarine to make a crumble (I ended up using 3 packets) and spread over the top.



Bake in the oven for 50 minutes to an hour until bubbly and golden brown. In the meantime, find out that the Wizard of Oz is on TV and settle in to watch.

We had to send the kids to bed before this was done - but they were promised they could have some for breakfast!!

So here it is, breakfast!!! And this was almost better than the soup.

OCTOBERFEST!! FALL 2011

It’s fall and that can mean only one thing…Octoberfest!  Give us your best October food!  It could be something traditional to the famous German festival, it could be something to do with Halloween, or it could just be your favorite leaves-are-a-turnin’ meal.  There’s bound to be something about October that inspires you.  So, give us your best for the Octoberfest!  (This challenge will run through the end of November).

OCTOBERFEST!! FALL 2011

It’s fall and that can mean only one thing…Octoberfest!  Give us your best October food!  It could be something traditional to the famous German festival, it could be something to do with Halloween, or it could just be your favorite leaves-are-a-turnin’ meal.  There’s bound to be something about October that inspires you.  So, give us your best for the Octoberfest!  (This challenge will run through the end of November).

Pesto-Potato Salad

I'm just going to say RIGHT NOW that my cooking is typically healthy. However, if one had only my Cooking Challenge posts to go on, one might think I was always cooking things with low nutritional quotient and high "lazy" factor. (Oh geez, and I never did post my Lazy Pancakes entry. Well, some things may be best left undone, eh?)

This dish is really no different. It's embarrassingly easy. And somewhat high calorie. (Sly, I'd be intrigued for you to run your calorie evaluation on this dish. Kind of.) But you have NEVER tasted the likes of it before. And you'll want to. Trust me.

I got this recipe from fellow Cooking Challenger @theStephFisher's Fourth of July party 2 years ago. Her sister (Deborah Miller, PhD candidate) brought Pesto Potato Salad to the 4th of July picnic & I haven't stopped thinking about it since then.

This totally fits the "Local Foods" category of the Summer's Cooking Challenge. The potatoes and green beans are local, as are the basil leaves & garlic used in the pesto. And I know you're going to want to make it because it is So. Good. It best for taking to pot lucks, so you don't accidentally eat the whole bowl all alone. I have now made it three times this summer. (Granted, pesto is my favorite food, but still. 3 times!? I don't think we've had hamburgers three times this summer.)

Here are the ingredients:





Pesto (homemade)
Potatoes, chopped bite sized & boiled
Green Beans
Green Onions (I actually used real onions because I was out of green onions. Improvising is the name of the game!)
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Garnish:
Pine Nuts left over from making the pesto & some ribbons of basil

I bought my potatoes from the Minnetrista Farmer's Market. My favorite are potatoes from Christopher Farms, a local all organic farm in Randolph County. Her booth is always beautiful! Their potatoes are expensive, but almost buttery-tasting. I have a whole passle of the purple potatoes. Aren't they beautiful?





The green beans are local, too. These were also bought at Farmer's Market from a farmer who's in Blackford County, just north of here.

I made the pesto for this batch, but I've used jarred pesto at other times. You can do that. Believe me, this Lazy Baker will NEVER judge you for taking a cooking shortcut. However, making your own pesto is easy. How's about I share the recipe with you below?

So seriously making Pesto Potato Salad is this easy:
1. Prepare the pesto if you're going to make it yourself (see below)
2. Boil the potatoes (Normally I wouldn't share the photo of boiling potatoes, but the water is almost blue!)





3. Chop up the green beans & green onions
4. Blanch the green beans by adding them to the pot with the potatoes for the last 2 or 3 minutes
5. rinse the potatoes/ green beans in cold water to stop them from cooking
6. Put potatoes, green beans, green onions in a bowl





7. Pour in a few swirls of olive oil to lubricate everything
8. Put pesto in, then stir gently so as the potatoes are not turned to mush.
9. Garnish with a handful of pine nuts & some ribbons of basil.
10. Do everyone a favor & put a little portion in a separate bowl. If you eat it out of the main bowl now, you might not be able to contain yourself.

FYI - I think this is best eaten while it's still warm from boiling the potatoes. Mmmmm. PS. I love that the potatoes retain the purple color after cooking! Looks beautiful!





In today's Two For One, here's the recipe for Traditional Pesto

The hardest part about making your own pesto is growing healthy, vibrant basil. If you have a brown thumb like me, it might seem out of reach to make homemade pesto. But to my good fortune, I live ridiculously close to Minnetrista Cultural Center where anyone can go pick herbs from their prolific herb garden. Prolific. And since I had the leftover ingredients from the last time I made pesto, all I needed to do was grab some basil. (And sometimes I do buy basil from the Christopher Farms lady, too. I'm pretty sure she has a gold thumb, to my brown one!)



Traditional Pesto
Blend the following until fully incorporated:
A little more basil leaves than you think
A great big handful of parmesean cheese
4 or five cloves of garlic
a good 1/3 to 1/2 cup of pine nuts (really you need pine nuts. they make it taste best)
a great big splash of olive oil
salt & pepper

It's simple. And really, just adjust the ingredients to taste.