Battle of the Jalapeno Soups!

I've decided that I'm kitchen bipolar or something. Oh hey, it's 95 degrees and humid as heck? Why yes I feel compelled to make not one, but two different batches of soup that involve roasting jalapenos and while we're at it why don't we wash all the bedding (two hot dryer loads), clean and rotate the mattress, and hang the comforter out to air. Let's not forget the part where I refuse to turn on the AC for just me. Luckily having the shades drawn and fans blasting kept things pretty cool (except for the kitchen part). Mrs. T loaded me up with a ton of extra jalapenos and cheese at the end of our shore excursion so my mission today was to use them up. Enter....

THE BATTLE OF THE JALAPENO SOUPS!

An overview: both soups were divine. One was a healthier roasted jalapeno soup and the other was billed as a not so healthy jalapeno popper soup. They were both wonderful in their own ways but were significantly different. I served each with an equal amount of shredded cabot cheddar and crumbled bacon. Divine.
Soup #1: Roasted Jalapeno Soup. This one was lighter and did a great job at highlighting the roasted jalapeno flavor. It had a more earthy and vegetable flavor due to the carrot and onion base. The texture was thicker and creamier due to the blending. If you added a bit of cheddar cheese it would be spot on.
Soup #2: Jalapeno Popper Soup. Very decadent and rich. It tasted more like a cheese soup with jalapenos added in. It was very thin and watery to start with so I whisked in some flour and blended it. This improved the texture a lot and helped the cream cheese to incorporate instead of blobbing around.

The winner?!

My Vote: Roasted Jalapeno!

Mr. Lawyer's Vote: Jalapeno Popper!

As I said they were both delicious. I felt the roasted did a better job highlighting the jalapeno flavor but Mr. Lawyer thought it was a little on the bland side. The jalapeno popper was a decadent treat that should be used as a fondue side dish. There is no way I could have eaten a whole bowl of the jalapeno popper soup (Mr. Lawyer said he could which is probably why his cholesterol was not so hot).

Jalapeno Popper on the left and Roasted Jalapeno on the right.

Roasted Jalapeno Soup

(Adapted from chocolatemoosey.com)

Ingredients:
4 green jalapeno peppers
1/2 cup carrots, peeled and chopped (about 2 carrots)
1/2 cup onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup flour
2 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400F.  Cut each jalapeno in half lengthwise and remove the seeds and membrane. Place them face down onto the cookie sheet. Roast for 10-15 minutes or until slightly darkened. When cool enough to handle, chop.
2. In a medium sauce pot, heat the olive oil. When hot, saute the carrots, onion, and garlic for about 5 minutes or until the carrots and onions start to soften.
3. Add in the butter. Once the butter has melted, stir in the flour until everything is coated. Stir in the chopped jalapenos. Slowly stir in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Then stir in the heavy cream and bring back to a boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook until the soup has thickened, about 5-7 minutes.
4. When the soup has thickened, turn off the heat. If using an immersion blender, blend the soup directly in the pan. If using a regular blender, add about half the mixture then puree until smooth. Add the rest of the soup then puree until smooth. Pour back into the sauce pan.

Jalapeno Popper Soup

(Adapted from ibreatheimhungry.com)

Ingredients:
4 slices raw bacon
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups water or chicken broth
2 tablespoons salsa verde (I subbed onions)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
4 large jalapeno peppers
Directions:
1. Cook the bacon in a medium saucepan until crisp – remove and chop for garnish and set aside. 

2. In the same pan, along with the bacon grease, add the heavy cream, water or broth, and cream cheese. Simmer gently, stirring often, until the cream cheese and butter have melted and the liquid is smooth. 

3. Whisk in the garlic powder, salsa verde and shredded cheeses until completely incorporated. 4. Meanwhile, wash the jalapenos and broil or grill them until softened and charred. Remove the skins and seeds and chop finely. Add to the soup and cook for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and serve garnished with chopped bacon.

Now go make some homemade soup! It's super easy.

Bacon and Guac!

And yet another big kid grilled cheese hit. The spicy guacamole was tempered by the smokey bacon and cheese. Yum yum. Served up with the leftover Tomato-Orzo soup.

Cheddar, Bacon, and Guacamole Grilled Cheese

Ingredients:
Nice bread
Cheddar Cheese
Bacon
Spicy Guacamole!
Directions:
1. Assemble sandwich and grill!

Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese

It's a little bit chilly out and this sandwich provided a little bit of heat. I made a batch of my Tomato-Orzo Soup (I omitted the cream). It's almost gone, clearly still a favorite. This Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese was spot on. It actually tasted like a popper! They are a bit on the rich side so I don't think you could have more than one. It was really fun (and easy!) roasted the peppers. It added a nice smokiness. I also baked my bacon on a wire rack so it wasn't soaking up the grease. The perfect lunch for a chilly day!

Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese

(Pinterest find!)

Ingredients for 2 sandwiches:
2 jalapeno peppers

4 pieces of bacon
4 slices of good bread
1 tablespoon butter
4 tablespoons cream cheese
Cheddar cheese, desired amount
Directions:

1. Broil the peppers on a baking sheet for 10-15 minutes, until blackened. Remove from oven and place peppers in a zip-lock bag. Once cool, peel off the skins, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cook the bacon to the desired crispness. 

2. Butter the outside of bread and spread the cream cheese on the inside. On each sandwich layer 1 sliced up jalapeno, 2 slices of bacon, and cheddar cheese.

3. Grill your cheese! Serve with soup.

BLT!

Why don't we have BLTs more often?! The response I received was "they don't fill me up". Sighs. In addition to his never full stomach, my toaster oven was relegated to a bottom cabinet when I received Reggie the KitchenAid. Not only is it a pain to dig it out but the toaster oven has developed a nasty habit of catching fire when used. Lovely. Luckily it seems to have corrected itself and our sourdough bread was perfectly toasted. We made it a tad more healthy with the substitution of turkey bacon.

Our BLT assembly line!

 Mr. Lawyer inhaled two (and picked out chocolate as his plate color!)

My personal favorite additions to a BLT? Cabot Hunter Cheddar and Creamy Horseradish Spread/Mayo.

To die for.

Grandslam Breakfast!

I love, love, love breakfast food which means I loooove breakfast for dinner. This was a semi-clean out the fridge meal and it came out beautifully. I had half a red onion and a getting soft tomato that I was going to add to the scrambled eggs. When I did a little research I found that it was a popular Venezuelan breakfast dish called Perico! This sounds much more sophisticated and worldly than "Onion and Tomato Scramble!" It was a delicious change up from plain scrambled eggs.

The other leftover that made itself useful was the bacon and brown sugar seasoning from the Sweet & Spicy Jalapeno Poppers. Essentially I made my Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon with the spicy sugar-creole mixture (I had about 1/4 cup leftover from the popper recipe). Man oh man was that a hit. The bacon started off nice and sweet and then the spicy smokey flavor finished it off. 

To round out our breakfast for dinner we had some buttermilk waffles (from some fancy mix we were gifted) topped with my precious Vermont maple syrup. We topped the eggs off with some Cabot Cheddar so it was a very Vermont themed meal! 

Venezuelan Perico

(Scrambled Eggs with Onion and Tomatoes)

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium tomato, chopped fine
1 green pepper, chopped fine (optional)
4-6 eggs
3 tablespoons cream or milk

Shredded cheddar cheese for topping
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Whisk eggs together with cream, salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Melt butter with oil in a large nonstick skillet.
3. Sautéed chopped onions over medium heat until translucent.
4. Add tomatoes and peppers and cook over medium heat until soft, 8-10 minutes.
5. Pour eggs into skillet and cook gently, stirring them lightly and flipping them as they cook.
6. Cook to desired doneness, serve and top with cheese.

Sweet & Spicy!

This is hands down the best appetizer I've had in a long time. Mrs. T whipped up a batch of these this past weekend at the shore and they were to die for. I loved them so much that Monday after work I ran to the store to pick up the ingredients and we had jalapeno poppers for dinner! The sweet and spicy play off each other so well....plus it can't be bad if it's wrapped in bacon! The original recipe used chili seasoning but we subbed Tony's Creole Seasoning which was amazing.

My six jalapenos were very large so I doubled the cheese filling and it worked out perfectly. My bacon didn't cook evenly, especially on the bottom, so next time I will try baking them on a wire rack or pre-cooking the bacon a bit. The only other issue was the bacon shrinking and semi-falling off on some pieces.

Sweet & Spicy Jalapeno Poppers

(adapted from Taste of Home)

Ingredients:
6 jalapeno peppers
4 ounces cream cheese, softened (double if needed)
2 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese (double if needed)
6 bacon strips, halved widthwise
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon creole/cajun seasoning
Directions:
1. Cut jalapenos in half lengthwise and remove seeds; set aside. In a small bowl, beat cheeses until blended. Spoon into pepper halves. Wrap a half-strip of bacon around each pepper half.
2. Combine brown sugar and chili seasoning; coat peppers with sugar mixture.
3. Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes or until bacon is firm.

A Hit And A Miss

I love asian food, I love BLTs, I loved these spring rolls (especially once I added some Cabot Cheddar....which is always on my BLTs.). Mr. Lawyer on the other hand started out with a "Aren't spring rolls suppose to be fried" which was quickly followed by him comparing the rice paper to a condom. Needless to say, he took all the insides out and I was left to eat the lion's share. I was worried about using rice paper for the first time but it was super easy! (see the pictures below) The Sriracha Mayo was to die for and would be a welcome addition to any sandwich.

BLT Spring Rolls

(from Inspired Taste)

Ingredients:
4 8-inch rice paper (spring roll) wrappers
2 cups packed shredded or baby lettuce leaves
1 large tomato, cut into 1/4-inch slices
4 strips cooked thick-cut bacon
Cabot Cheddar Cheese!
1/4 cup mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 a lime
1-2 teaspoons Sriracha chili sauce
salt to taste
Directions:
1. Combine mayonnaise, lime juice and 1 teaspoon of chili sauce. Taste for spiciness then add more chili sauce if needed. Season with salt.
2. Dip a rice paper into a plate of warm water for 5-10 seconds; shake off excess water and place on a clean kitchen towel or cutting board. Stack shredded or baby lettuce leaves on the lower third of the rice paper. Add tomatoes then a strip of bacon. Spread about 2 teaspoons of lime mayonnaise then top with some more lettuce.
3. Fold the bottom of the rice paper up over the lettuce, tomato and bacon. Fold in the sides, then roll up. Repeat with remaining ingredients. If one of the wrappers rips, carefully overlap the two edges then continue to assemble the roll.

Soak.

 Fill it up.

 Fold.

Hurricane Soup!

In preparation of several rainy days we made some hurricane soup! The perfect rainy day meal. It was a hodge podge type deal with no real measuring, a cheap and healthy version of a potato leak soup. We had a lot of extra salt potatoes leftover from my family being in town. We decided it would be healthier to cook them in the soup instead of boiling them in super salty water and smothering them in butter. But less delicious? Most definitely. Instead of cream/half and half we used chicken broth and skim milk. To get the creamy texture we pureed half of the soup and mixed it back in. We used three strips of bacon, cooked on the George Foreman Grill to limit the grease. Over all it was a good compromise, you can tell that it's a healthy soup but the taste is still pretty good. I did add some shredded Yancy's Fancy Horseradish Cheese which really gave it an extra kick.

Hurricane Potato Soup!

(from the kitchen of Jenni and Kevin!)

Ingredients:
Potatoes
1 small onion
1 leak
2 pieces of celery
Some chives
2 pieces bacon
Chicken Broth
Milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Shredded cheese for garnish
Directions:
1. Dice all your veggies, we left the skins on the potatoes. Combine liquids and veggies and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, add salt and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes or until veggies are soft.
2. Put half of mixture in a blender and puree. Return to pot and stir in bacon bits.

Stay safe and dry!

Bacon on Bacon

The running joke while we were shopping at the Dewitt Wegmans this weekend was "how many pork products can we get in our cart?" The answer is three. How many did we cook with tonight? Two. This was a staple in high school that Dad made all the time and I'm not quite sure why the Dork and I haven't keeled over from a heart attack yet. And for those of you that keep track of these things (Grandma Nancy!), I did use the reduced sodium bacon and serve it up with some Farmer's Market Squash Saute!

Dad's Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

(from the kitchen of Papa Peterson)

Ingredients:
1 pork tenderloin
4-5 strips of bacon, cut in half
Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
Directions:
1. Sprinkle on the desired amount of salt, pepper and garlic powder.
2. Wrap the tenderloin in bacon. I just use half strips and tuck it underneath.
3. Cook for 30 minutes at 425 degrees.

I'm pretty sure I heard some declarations of undying love in between the very manly sounds of shoveling pork products into one's mouth.

Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon

I was trying to be healthy and have a salad for dinner but I always get carried away with toppings which negates the potential healthiness of my poor salad. I started with some romaine, a little bit of onion, a couple of carrots, dried cranberries and some sunflower seeds. Then came the hard boiled egg, Cabot Cheddar and the Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon (often known as candied bacon). All of this was topped off with some Hendrickson's Sweet Vinegar and Olive Oil dressing. But everything is better with bacon right? Like scallops. They're fine by themselves but so much better when they are wrapped in bacon.
I first had this wonderful bacon when Melissa made it at the Lawyer's graduation brunch. It's amazing and completely addicting. It's great by itself or on a salad or with waffles or with anything really. Best of all it's incredibly simple (or worst of all?....)

Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon

(Bon Appétit Magazine)

Ingredients:
1 pound applewood-smoked bacon slices or thick-cut bacon slices
1/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

Directions:
Position 1 rack in top third of oven and preheat to 400°F. Line large rimmed baking sheet with foil. Place large rack on lined baking sheet. Arrange bacon slices in single layer on rack. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over. Bake until bacon is crisp and glazed, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Behold the mega-salad!

Anything with Bacon is amazing!

The Mother Unit came to visit the other weekend and graced us with her bacon wrapped scallops (and chocolate cheese cake!). They were super yummy, super easy, and super quick!

Bacon Wrapped Scallops

(The Mother Unit)

Ingredients:
Scallops
Bacon
Toothpicks
Directions:
1. Cut bacon in half and cook half way in a frying pan.
2. Cut scallops in half and wrap semi-cooked bacon around it. Pin with a toothpick.
3. Broil scallops, flipping half way through till they are done. How long? I have no clue. Mom was not super descriptive as she made them. Perhaps 5 minutes on each side? Care to enlighten us Mom?

The Mother Unit, doing her bacon-scallop thing.