Hi friends!
Last week, I ended my newsletter by talking about all the fabulous peppers I was gifted from my sweet cousin Jack. Knowing I was heading back to Denver, my main priority was transporting the peppers safely. I didn’t give a shit about the rest of my luggage as long as the peppers were unharmed. You would have thought my carry-on contained precious jewels the way I was handling it in the airport. But who’s to say jalapeño peppers aren’t precious jewels?
And while it felt a bit psychotic to be travelling with over 60 peppers in my bag (and TSA’s side eye sure didn’t help), I stand by my actions because those peppers have been feeding us all week. And keeping us warm– did you see that it snowed in Denver? I guess summer is officially coming to an end.
For this week’s newsletter, we’re going to be sharing all the ways we used peppers this week. We made homemade Pico de Gallo, Jalapeño Poppers and Quinoa Stuffed Peppers.
Let’s start with the spiciest ones in our batch– jalapeños. If you’ve never used jalapeños in your cooking before, here’s some words of advice. When you’re picking them out at the store, the ones with the white lines are going to be spicier than those without. Choose wisely. If you don’t want your peppers to be super hot, take out the seeds and ribs. When cutting these bad boys, best practice is to wear gloves because damn they can sometimes burn your skin. But do I always wear gloves? No. Hardly ever if I’m being honest. But that means sometimes my hands sting like crazy afterwards. You can use all sorts of things around your kitchen and pantry to calm the stinging, and my friend Caroline Gish has tried all of them if you’re looking for a recommendation. But for me, I’ve found olive oil works best. Just add a bit in your hands and rub in like lotion. And for the love of god, do not touch your eyes or any other sensitive area on your body. I don’t want to be graphic, so I’ll leave it at that.
We used our jalapeños two ways this week– for Pico de Gallo and Poppers. I’ve been on a bigggggg Pico kick all summer long. I mean, I put that shit on everything.
All you’ll need is:
1 small-medium white onion, diced
1 medium or 2 small jalapeños, diced
1 ½ lb ripe tomatoes – use whatever variety you like. This week, we used a combination of cherry and roma because that’s what we had at the house
½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
4 tablespoons lime juice, about 1 whole lime
Salt to taste
Chop everything and throw into a bowl. Add your lime juice and salt. That’s it. Super simple and comes together in less than 10 minutes. I always think it tastes best when it’s had a day to sit in the fridge, but I won’t pretend I don’t eat half of it immediately after making.
Because the salsa only used 2 jalapeños and we had approximately 38 left, we also made poppers. The recipe below calls for 12 peps, which in turn makes 24 perfectly cheesy, creamy snacks. But since we were really trying to use as many peppers as possible, we made a few batches. We froze some, gave some to friends and included them in our Sunday night dinner.
For the jalapeño poppers, you’ll need:
12 jalapeño peppers, cut in half lengthwise with seeds and ribs removed
1 8oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
½ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
A few cracks of fresh black pepper
12 slices bacon – I recommend using thin cut, otherwise it won’t wrap all the way around the pepper
Toothpicks
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese and your spices.
Fill each jalapeno with the cheese mixture. Cut the slices of bacon in half crosswise and wrap each pepper. Use toothpicks to secure the bacon in place. If you’re like us and only have thick-cut, cut the bacon into bite-size pieces and instead of wrapping it, place on top of the cheese mixture and secure with a toothpick.
At this point, you can either throw them in the oven for 20-25 minutes until crispy and brown, or you can line on a baking sheet or plate and put in your freezer. Once frozen, take them off the baking sheet and put in a gallon-size bag. Store for future use.
And just when you thought you’ve had enough with the pepper content (word count for “pepper” is 30 in this newsletter… yikes), I have one more recipe for you. We also had some milder ones in our bunch, so with those, we made Quinoa Stuffed Peppers with Avocado Sauce.
This is what you’ll need:
6 peppers, halved and seeds removed – I suggest using bell peppers because they hold up better and have more room for filling, but we used poblano and anaheim since we had them
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup quinoa (1 cup of uncooked quinoa yields ~3 cups cooked)
2 cups chicken broth
½ white onion, chopped
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
For the avocado sauce, you’ll need:
1 ripe avocado
¼ cup plain greek yogurt
2 tablespoons lime juice, about ½ lime
2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
Salt
Start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Place your halved peppers cut side up on the baking sheet. Lather with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bake for 15 minutes.
While your peppers are baking, get your stuffing ready. Start by cooking your quinoa. Combine 1 cup of quinoa with 2 cups of chicken broth. If you don’t have chicken broth, you can definitely sub with water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover with a lid and let cook for 15-20 minutes, or until fluffy. Remove from heat.
With your quinoa simmering, add your chopped onion to a small skillet with some olive oil and salt. Cook on medium-low until soft. Remove from heat.
In a large bowl, combine your cooled quinoa and onions with the black beans, corn, cilantro, lime juice and spices.
Remove the peppers from the oven and divide the filling into each pepper half. Bake for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and top with shredded cheese. Bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
With your peppers finishing, make you avocado sauce. Add your avocado halves, greek yogurt, lime juice, cilantro and salt to a food processor. Blend until smooth. If you don’t have a food processor, no worries. Add everything to a bowl and mash with a potato masher or fork.
We topped our stuffed peppers off with the avocado sauce, that homemade Pico de Gallo AND our favorite hot sauce– Green Belly from Boulder, Colorado.
For what’s giving me life this week, it’s been watching my work wife Faith slay on Love Island. While I’m sad she didn’t make it to the villa, I’m selfishing happy I get to talk to her again. This week, I’m finally reading Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. My amazing friend Erin, who just celebrated her birthday this week (!!!) gave me this book months ago, and I am finally getting around to reading it. You can see I got myself a new reading spot, thanks to Star Power Vintage. Between my roomie and myself, we sent 9 letters in the mail this week to loved ones all across the country. If you didn’t know, we are quite obsessed with cards. We buy them for each other, for ourselves and of course, for friends and family. Although we had plenty to choose from at home, we still stopped by our favorite shops (The Perfect Petal and Wordshop) to buy some more. We also spent our Sunday morning at the South Pearl Street Farmers Market, where I scored this beautiful tomato and fresh sourdough bread, so you know I’ll be eating plenty of tomato toast this week.
Wish I was with you,
Maddie