As I awoke from a much needed nap this afternoon, I thought about the boxes of fresh produce in our kitchen. I’ve been taking care of my parent’s house while they’ve been gone for the past 3 weeks. Between that, my own yard, and getting ready to teach again, life has been really busy. The other factor is their garden (FARM). Mom planted 30 tomato plants, piles of cucumbers, peppers, beans, etc. She did all of this planting and then left when it all came to maturity. So, I’ve collected box after box of fresh produce.
Right now, we have over 75 peppers, about 30 lbs of tomatoes, and some other items. As I awoke, a recipe came to mind that might use up some of these items and allow me to use the dutch oven.
This is my own creation so I may choose to improve it in the future but this is what I did tonight. I didn’t make a recipe for this but I will approximate it here if you’d like to recreate it.
Chile Rellenos
- 12 peppers (we used Anaheim peppers because we have WAY too many)
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups of corn flour
- Mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup Milk
- Paprika to taste
- Cumin to taste
- salt to taste
- Put about 1/2″ in the bottom of a dutch oven and get it up to heat with only high heat on the bottom & not the lid.
- place the peppers over a gas flame or broil them in the oven until the outside skin bubbles. Rotate them so that all sides are evenly bubbled.
- When the peppers are ready, toss them all into a plastic bag together and close the top. Let them sit for a little while. This will steam them a bit and make it easier to remove the outer skin.
- While the peppers steam, make the batter for the outside. Mix the 4 eggs & flour together. This will be quite thick but that’s alright. We’ll add milk to thin it out.
- Add your spices & salt to the batter. Then thin the mix out with the milk until it has the consistency of cake batter.
- Remove the peppers and pull off the skin
- Cut the peppers lengthwise and remove the seeds. Don’t wash the peppers out with water as it will flush out all of the flavors and oils that make them so good.
- Put a stick of mozzarella cheese into the pepper & close the pepper around it.
- Hold the peppers by their stems and dip them in the batter. Be sure to cover the whole pepper.
- Drop the peppers immediately into the dutch oven for frying.
- As they fry, spoon a little oil over the top to keep the fry even. Turn them until they are golden brown.
- Remove and put into the oven (200 degrees) to make sure the cheese is completely melted.
- When ready to serve, pour your sauce (my sauce recipe is below) over the top & eat them.
The Tomato Sauce
- 5 tomatoes blended
- 2 tomatoes diced
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 White Onion
- Salt to Taste
- Blend all ingredients together.
- Add the diced tomatoes for texture.
- pour over the Chille Rellenos
That’s it. It is delicious. Enjoy.
Here are the pics:
