543 and Counting!

Day 1: The guys love their munchies.  One of their favorites are Jalapeno poppers and I have gotten pretty damn good at making them if I do say so myself.  Last year I searched the web for the perfect recipe and after a few trials I found one that was excellent.  Very time consuming for the amount that I make, but the smiles and oohhs and aaahhhs I get are all worth it.  This year I started with a peck basket full of peppers.  Mike spent the day at Mona & Dave's helping to fix their well and I spent the day in my PJ's cutting and seeding the little buggers and watching football.

By the time I finished I had almost filled one of those grocery green bags you get in the veggie section with the pepper halves.  Then Mona calls to tell me that she is cooking dinner and I have to get dressed because Mike was on his way home to shower and get me.  So my two day pepper process is going to tun into a 3 day one.  Believe me I am totally ok with that because dinner was amazing.  One of my favorite by the way, spaghetti and garlic bread!

Day 2:  Now comes the fun part.... Stuffing the peppers!  Here is the perfect recipe that I found for the center goo:

1. 3 bricks of cream cheese softened
2. 1 lb. shredded cheddar cheese
3. 1 package bacon pieces ( the salad kind and NOT BACO'S these no bacon in those things)
4. 2 tsp. garlic powder

Mix all those together and fill each pepper half.  Use a disposable aluminum baking pan, for me it is a large one, put a piece of wax paper on the bottom and start filling the pan with the stuffed pepper halves.   Use a piece of wax paper between each layer as you go.  When you are finished, cover with aluminum foil and refridge over night.  Doing this makes them firm and easier to work with when coating and breading.

Day 3:  Prep for freezing.... a few simple steps and you are almost done.. things you need... milk, all purpose flour, bread crumbs, and cookie cooling racks.

1. Fill 1 bowl with milk and 1 with all purpose flour.  Place a few stuffed halves in the milk, then coat each one with flour.  Roll well to make sure that they are well coated.  Refill bowls with flour & milk as needed
2. Place floured peppers on cooling racks and allow to dry.
3. Fill 1 bowl with bread crumbs and refill your milk bowl.  Dip your floured pepper halves one at a time in the milk then roll in the bread crumbs.
4. Place breaded peppers on rack to dry.  
5. When dry follow steps #'s 3 & 4 again
6. After peppers have dried from final breading place back into your pan with fresh wax paper dividers and place whole pan in freezer.  Allow to freeze over night.  
7. Take pan out of freezer, separate peppers into how ever many servings you would like, place in freezer bags, remove air, seal, label and return to freezer.

          

Now when ever you are ready all you have to do is pop a bag out of the freezer and deep fry or bake.  So much cheaper than buying them from the store.  **MAKE SURE YOU WEAR RUBBER GLOVES WHILE WORKING WITH THE PEPPERS**