Good for your soul

My Jalapeño plants are producing so many peppers I had to have some neighbors over to enjoy some jalapeño poppers to use them up.

My neighbor wondered if we would have enough, so she bought a few at the store. They looked great, until I compared them to mine! WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The ones from my garden were bigger, better color, and just a better feel all around! The best part is its not hard to grow in the garden!

I have used jalapeño peppers in lots of different recipes, so I was not worried about cutting, deseeding and washing them. Boy, I should have been! There is, apparently, a huge difference between prepping 1 or 2 jalapeños and doing 20!! I started coughing and had a burning in my throat – it wasn’t horrible, more like how you cry when you cut onions. My husband came out wondering if I needed help, and he started to cough! As soon as we walked away from them it stopped, and we started laughing! So if you do a large quantity, make sure you have good ventilation. I also did not wear gloves, although it was strongly suggested. I just washed my hands really well when I was finished. I guess, I was lucky. Next time I will wear gloves as I’ve heard horror stories!

You just slice off the stem and cut the peppers in half. Then you cut out the seeds. Washed them really well. I didn’t want any seeds in them as it’s the seeds that add extra heat. I didn’t think I could handle the extra heat.

Because I was using 20 peppers, I doubled the filling. It calls for 8 ounces or parmesan per batch and I was a little worried with how much parmesan I needed! It all mixed in well and tasted great!

I love using Panko bread crumbs so I was happy it called for them. The other thing I liked about this recipe is you mix the bacon in the filling instead of wrapping the poppers. I would like to make them again and sub sausage for the bacon – I think that would be so good too!

You put filling in each pepper and then top with the bread crumb/butter mixture. I left the bread crumbs off some since some of my guests eat keto. They loved them without the bread crumbs!

My neighbor gave me the recipe, and I’m posting as she gave to me. I highly recommend! There were so good. They had heat to them but not overly spicy. Enjoy!