Recipe #96 - Chicken Artichoke Dip

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In a mixing bowl stir together the sour cream, milk, mayonnaise or salad dressing, lime juice, dried oregano, and salt.

Stir in the finely chopped chicken, avocado, tomato, onion, and jalapeno (optional). Stir until ingredients are thoroughly combined. Cover and chill until serving time.

If desired, garnish the dip with avocado slices. Serve with tortilla chips.

This was really tasty and easy to make if you needed to quickly whip some thing up for a party. The longest part is chopping up all the veggies (but the food processor is pretty handy with recipes like this).

Rating: 7
Time: 35 minutes
Serves: 10 (as an appetizer dip)
Ingredients:
1 rotisserie chicken, finely chopped (about 3 cups)
3 medium ripe avocados, seeded, peeled and chopped
3 small tomatos, seeded and chopped
3/4 cup onion, chopped
6 tablespoons pickled jalapeno peppers, rinsed and chopped (optional)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cup dairy sour cream
3/4 cup milk
6 tablespoons mayonnaise or salad dressing
6 teaspoons lime juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
avocado slices (optional)
tortilla chips

Recipe # 41 - Cream Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos

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Let's add some spice to this blog! And by spice I mean friggin' hot jalapenos! 

Now I wanted to serve some hor d'oeuvres to my friends and family on the 4th of July. After a little research, I found this recipe. However, it only had three ingredients: jalapenos, cream cheese and bacon. Talk about blah! I took the idea and added a few of my own ingredients. 

If you try making these, one thing I recommend (actually, I insist upon) is using gloves when preparing the jalapenos. I did not. For the rest of the day every time I put a finger up to my mouth it started burning. Then it spread to my upper and lower lips and was amplified by the sun - it was miserable! Thanks to my clever aunts, I learned that if you apply either lemon or lime juice to the jalapeno burn it recedes almost immediately. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Set out cream cheese and bacon to soften.

Start by rinsing the jalapenos and cutting them in half. Take a spoon or knife and remove all of the white membrane and seeds. Seeing as the seeds are what gives the jalapenos their main punch, you can leave a few inside to spice it up. I wasn't that daring :-/ Seeds be gone!

Mix the cheddar, mozzarella, cream cheese and sour cream in a medium bowl. Then stir in the green onions and chives. 

Next, cut the package of bacon in half. Wrap each jalapeno in a half strip of bacon. You can use more if the pepper is larger. You may also secure the bacon with a toothpick if needed. 

Place the peppers on a grilling rack and pop them into the oven for 20-25 minutes (until the bacon is crispy). They put off a lot of juice so I placed the grilling rack on a cookie sheet pan to catch the juices. Serve immediately or at room temperature.  

When I told people that I was going to be making these, I got a lot of "yucks" and "uh I think I may skip that one". But when these came out of the oven, I literally couldn't stop people from eating them! They smelled and tasted better than any of us had anticipated. I had to smack a few hands to make sure everyone had the chance to try at least one. 

I would definitely recommend these as an easy, tasty and fun to make hor d'oeuvre for any time of the year.

Rating: 10

Time: 40 minutes 

Serves: 20 (you know, unless everyone loves them, then about 10!)

Ingredients:

20 jalapenos

2 - 8 oz. blocks of cream cheese

1-2 pounds bacon (I used a little over 1 pound)

2/3 cup sour cream*

1 1/2 cup cheddar cheese*

1 cup mozzarella cheese*

3/4 cup green onions, diced*

1/3 cup chives*

*You can eye these measurements, if you feel like it needs more or less, then by all means!

Recipe #8 - Jalapeno Popper Sliders

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We had a lot of ground beef in the frig for some reason, so I needed to make a recipe using ground beef. I was in the mood for hamburgers, but didn't want to do the typical mayo, mustard, pickle, cheese thing. I've never made sliders before and began researching recipes. I found this:

"If you're in the mood for the flavors of the southwest, you'll love this pork and beef burger covered with roasted peppers and an avocado, sour cream, cilantro, Fresno chili and line juice dressing."

That was the tag line that hooked me for this recipe. Avocado! Sour cream! On a burger? Yes, please!

Everything but the Worcestershire sauce. Plus my recipe holder aka iPad.

There were a few things I threw out of the original recipe and a few that I added from others. For example, I didn't use pork, replaced it with more ground beef. It called for Pablano peppers (way too spicy for me), but used red peppers. I used Guinness Extra Stout beer instead of Negra Modelo.

I started out pre-heating the oven to broil. I cut up the the peppers into long thin strips and placed them on a cooking sheet. I then placed the pan into the oven (with the oven door ajar to allow steam to escape) to char them all over. Once charred, I quickly removed the peppers from the pan so that they didn't stick. I threw them into a small bowl to cool. Once cooled, using a food processor, I pureed them. Or as I like to say, "mush them up real good like". That's a technical term... Ha.

While the peppers are cooling before you puree them, cut the red onion into then rings and place in a bowl. Add half of the lime juice, salt, pepper, and drizzle with EVOO to coat. 

In another bowl, mash together the avocado, sour cream, cilantro, fresno chili and the remaining lime juice; season, to taste, with salt. This makes a thick sauce to top the slider with when finished. 

In a large bowl, combine the beef, pork, pureed peppers, cumin, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, salt and lots of pepper. Mix in the beer and Worcestershire sauce. 

Form the mixture into eight 3-inch patties (a little thinner in the center and thicker at the edges). Drizzle a little EVOO in a large skillet or nonstick griddle over medium-high heat. Add the burgers and cook, turning once, for about 7 minutes for medium-rare. Top with the pepper jack cheese slice (it's ok if it's much larger, it will melt around the edges of the slider).

Place the burgers on the wheat roll bottoms. Top with the onions and sauce and set the roll tops in place. Wala! You now have fabulous looking and tasting Jalapeno Popper Sliders!

I was impressed by the depth of the flavor. I could pin point the beer and the Worcestershire sauce as well as the broiled peppers. I felt like each item could have been it's own recipe, good enough to be eaten separately. The onions marinated in the spices and EVOO. The avocado, jalapeno and sour cream. Even the cinnamon added to the beef was just superb.

Almost to pretty to eat... almost.

  

Time: ~1 hour

Rating: I'm going to give this a 10. I would def make it again. In fact, I want to make it again right now just writing about them. 
Serves: 4
Ingredients:

2 large red peppers

1 small red onion, thinly sliced into rings

Juice of 2 limes, divided

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), for drizzling

1 small ripe avocado

1/2 cup sour cream

A handful of cilantro, finely chopped

1 Fresno or jalapeño chili, seeded and finely chopped

1.5 pounds ground beef sirloin

1/2 palmful each ground cumin, ground coriander and smoked sweet paprika (about 1 1/2 teaspoons each)

A pinch of ground cinnamon

1/3 cup beer, such as Guinness Extra Stout

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Sliced pepper Jack

8 white, potato or whole wheat slider rolls, split