Happy Halloween (a little late)

Lancer and I spent yesterday carving pumpkins and finishing up shopping for Halloween. We had 22 trick-or-treaters, and two repeaters (they had to come again because, the older of the two girls – who appeared to be about eight or nine – said, they now had little kids with them. She sounded quite disgusted by having what appeared to be their little brothers tagging along).

We handed out small goodie bags containing chocolate chip granola bars, rainbow Twizzlers, DumDum pops, Smarties, and gummy body parts.

Didn’t take many pictures, but did get photos of our jack-pumpkins before heading to bed:



Lancer's Skrull pumpkin. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart was out of green glowsticks. Pattern from Zombie Pumpkins

My peeping monster. By Pumpkin Masters

The pictures came out surprisingly good considering I'm generally not enthralled with the quality my little camera puts out. Enhanced the lighting and colors in PSP X2 a little, but really didn't have to do much work here.

Of course, what doesn't show is the effect from the cheap little strobe lights we got at Wal-Mart:





Kinda cool.

Hope everybody had a happy Halloween!

Jalapeno Poppers

I took these to my dad's family reunion yesterday and they seemed to be quite a hit. Based on a recipe from The Pioneer Woman.

My version is slightly more labor intensive (it took me about 4 hours, all told, to produce 100 of the little buggers), but I think the extra work brings out more of the jalapeno flavor.

I'll give you the 100-piece version and you can scale as needed.


Filling:
4 - 8oz packages cream cheese, room temperature
2 - 4oz cans diced green chiles
2 tbsp heavy cream (optional, but it helps get the filling to a pipe-able consistency)

Also:
50 jalapenos
2-3 packages of bacon (this varies depending on how many slices are in a package)
Vinyl or rubber gloves
Large pan or bowl of water
Sheet pans
Wire racks

In a large mixing bowl, beat the filling ingredients to within an inch of their lives, scraping and beating until well mixed. Set aside.

Put on gloves and start cutting the jalapenos in half lengthwise. Enlist some help and remove the innards with a spoon (grapefruit spoon works wonderfully). If you want things to come out mild, scrape out the thin inner membrane that holds all of the heat (if you look close, it looks like a little web of cells on the inside of the pepper). Toss the peppers into a dish of water as you work to help clean off excess seeds and membrane.

Set your oven to broil.

Lay the cleaned peppers inside-down on a couple of baking sheets. Put the first sheet in the oven close to the broiler and wait for five minutes, or until the popping stops and the skins are slightly blackened. Remove the pan and put in the other one, then start flipping the peppers on the first pan over. Once the second pan of peppers is done, pull it out and put the first pan back in for five minutes. This will dry out the inside and give a nice little roast to the inside of the pepper. Repeat the flipping and second broiling for the second pan of peppers.

(The broiling steps are optional, but the broil brings out a lot of flavor and eliminates the raw-pepper flavor. If you like raw pepper, though, skip it.)

Turn the oven down to 425F.

Grab a ZipLock bag, snip off a bottom corner, and fill it with the cream cheese mixture. Start piping the cream cheese into the peppers, then go back and fill in the gaps you left thinking you wouldn't have enough filling.

Set up a cookie sheet with two wire racks.

Pull out a package of bacon and open it up. Stack a few slices on top of one another, then cut in half the short way. Then cut your halves in half the long way - you should end up with long quarter strips of bacon. Start wrapping them around the peppers. You might have to stretch the bacon out a little longer to get it around larger peppers. Repeat process until all of the peppers are wrapped up, laying them out on racks in pans as you go.

Once you have the peppers wrapped and panned, put them in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the bacon is cooked and golden. Remove to a serving dish and make sure to swipe a few for yourself!

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I do think next time I will throw some of the scraped out membranes into the cream cheese mix. I find that not scraping them out of the peppers results in too much spice, and it varies a lot from pepper to pepper, but getting rid of them completely makes the poppers too mild. I'm thinking putting the membrane into the cream cheese will maintain some kick and keep it even from pepper to pepper.

Brownie Cherry Cheesecake

This is an idea I've had in mind for some time, and with a family reunion coming up tomorrow, I've finally brought it to fruition.

Here's the recipe I put together:

Brownie batter
Two boxes (approx 20oz each) brownie mix
4 eggs
1/2 c water
1 c vegetable oil
(or the appropriate amounts for your mix)

Cheesecake batter
1c plus 2 tbsp sugar
3 - 8oz packages cream cheese
1/4 c plus 2 tbsp heavy cream
3 eggs
3 tbsp flour (I used white whole wheat)
3/4 c sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

Ganache
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 c heavy cream
1 tsp butter (optional)

Also
2 cans cherry pie filling (approx 20oz each)
3 tbsp heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, prepare the brownie batter as directed on the box and set aside.

In another large bowl, beat sugar and cream cheese on high until light and fluffy. Blend in the cream, then add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each. Beat in the sour cream, flour, and vanilla until smooth.

Stir the brownie batter again to get some of the air out, then in a small bowl, mix together 3/4 c of the brownie batter and the extra 3 tbsp of cream until the cream is incorporated and the batter is slightly thinned. Gently fold thinned batter and one can of cherries into the cheesecake batter, just enough so they streak through with plenty of plain cheesecake mix around it.

Heavily spray a 9x13 or 10x14 inch pan with cooking spray. Spread one-half of the remaining brownie mix over the bottom of the pan. Pour on the cheesecake mix, taking care to displace as little of the brownie batter as possible. Dot spoonfuls of the last of the brownie mix on the top and spread gently.

Bake for one hour, turn off the oven, and let sit in the oven for at least one more hour. Remove to the counter.

In a small bowl, heat the 1/3 c of cream in the microwave for ninety seconds. Remove and stir in the chocolate chips and butter until shiny and smooth. Spread over the top of the cheesecake. Let set for 10-minutes, then spoon the other can's-worth of cherries on top and spread them around. Leave the cheesecake for a couple of hours to finish cooling and setting before diving in.

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I'm looking forward to this! Anticipated issues - the brownie "crust" being tough from having baked about twice as long as the brownie directions call for, and the cheesecake not having set due to the additions. Still, I think the taste will be awesome even if the aesthetics fall apart.

Hard at Work

Lancer working on his English paper

Cid working on avoiding the camera

Still working on it...

Such a strain!

Damning the paparazzi.



"Fine! Are you happy now?"

Lancer Goes Back to School

Inaugural posting for this blog, and it's a submission to I ♥ Faces for their Back to School challenge.

At the age of 33.83, my dear hubby has gone back to college to earn his BS (hehe) in network infrastructure. We took several photos of Lancer the evening of his first day, but I liked the expression in this one the most. It says, "I'm debonair, headed out to conquer the world," but in actuality is, "Why is that guy letting his dog relieve itself on our tree?":

Classes are going well so far. He's currently trying to figure out how to manage his time so that he gets his homework done and still has time to play Everquest - boys!