Jalapeno Poppers

Jalapeno Poppers

Jalapeno Poppers


12 Jalapeno Peppers
8 oz Cream cheese, goat cheese or 4oz of both, softened to room temperature.
Shredded cheddar cheese
Real Bacon bits or fried crispy crumbled bacon slices, to your taste




Preheat oven to 400 deg




Split jalapeno peppers in half, remove membranes and seeds, rinse well, make sure nothing "white" remains in the shells. NOTHING unless you really like them HOT. Even one seed will fire your mouth up. Tips are below.


In a bowl mix 8 ounces cream/and or/goat cheese with a handful of the cheddar. The goal is to make a cheese filling that is somewhat stiff but still pliable by hand. Add more cheddar if it seems to need it. Then add the bacon bits to the bowl. You can mash it together with a fork or use your hands to mix it very well. I recommend using your hands myself. 
Stuff mixture into peppers, you can use a spoon or do it by hand. I do it by hand. Messier but works better.I put the filling in so that it's not in a big mound but spread out so that the pepper is just slightly rounded on top when done.


Place stuffed peppers on a cookie sheet with a lip around the edge. They will roll out of a flat cookie sheet. Or use any other baking pan with sides. Top with a little bit of shredded cheddar on each pepper. Time consuming but if you just cover everything with cheese it does not work well to dip them in ranch. Then it becomes more knife and fork.....


Bake for about 20--30 minutes or until tender and just "almost" turning color...less time for less color if you like. 

Let cool for 5-10 min. Dip in Ranch or Bleu cheese dressing and enjoy!


TIPS:


1. Sometimes I substitute cooked hot Italian sausage for the bacon bits.

2. I have scraped the peppers with a spoon and with my thumb under 4 layers of plastic gloves. The thumb worked better. The spoon just didn't do as good of a job. Less than 4 layers of glove and the oils from the peppers got into my nail bed and burned for several days.NOT.FUN. The peppers scraped with a spoon were also much hotter.

3. Do not work with the peppers bare handed. The oils are very difficult to wash from your skin and if you touch anything on your body [And MEN I mean ANYTHING] you will be sorry you did not wear gloves. I promise. Also do not handle your contact lenses if you did not wear gloves. OUCH. I keep a fingernail brush on my kitchen sink and scrub under my nails after wards too.Sometimes I go through 3 rounds of 4 gloves just to get them all scraped. As soon as the glove starts looking raggedy I change them.


4. I usually make a lot at one time and store them in a Ziploc bag in the fridge after they cool down. The cheese cools to a solid consistency and they just stack right up. Nuke the number you want to eat for 40sec. on a plate or so and they are like they just came out of the oven.

5. Change up the shredded cheese, the ingredients [bacon, sausage, etc] And even add spices if you like. I read one variation where they used spinach artichoke dip for a filling and they really liked it...