Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Hi Bonnie, I haven't posted in a while, but I have a great new dish.  Stuffed Poblano Peppers.  It is a very easy dish, but it is not quick.

Here are the ingredients.

Less than six ingredients for Stuffed Poblano Peppers.

One lb. ground beef
Four poblano peppers
Zatarain's Dirty Rice Mix
Pace Original picante sauce (I like medium)
Monterrey jack cheese

The first step is to make the Dirty Rice with the ground beef according to the instructions on the box.  When it is almost done, steam the peppers for four minutes.  Longer makes the peppers mushy.  I use a steamer basket in a sauce pan, putting in the peppers with a lid on when the water is boiling.  Here are the steamed peppers and Dirty Rice.

Dirty Rice and steamed poblano peppers.

The peppers are sliced in half with seeds and stems removed.

Chunks of Monterrey jack cheese are placed on each pepper half.

Then fill each of the peppers with a heaping mound of Dirty Rice and spoon some picante sauce on top.

Stuffed poblano peppers ready to bake.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Cover peppers with foil before baking.

When it's done, take out of the oven and serve.

Baked and ready to eat!

Stuffed Poblano Peppers are great fresh from the oven and even better the next day.

This recipe can be made with bell peppers as well.

Bell Peppers also work well with this recipe, but steam them longer since they are larger.

Recipe Revisited: Chopstick Chicken

Fresh ingredients and nuts give this hot chicken salad a satisfying crunch

Hello there Beaver!  I was going through my cookbook the other day looking for Carol Vant's Quiche recipe (more on that later) when I came across this old casserole recipe you and I used to make a lot when we were younger, i.e. before the children decided they didn't like casseroles. Basically Chopstick Chicken is a hot chicken salad, but instead of mayonnaise it uses cream of mushroom soup, which is good because you can use regular, fat-free, low sodium, or heart healthy versions. Another thing this casserole has going for it is that it uses very few ingredients and therefore it's very simple.

Fresh out of the oven this recipe's a real winner. I love the crunch of the chow mein noodles and cashews. The goodness stops there, however. I had completely forgotten that this dish does not reheat well! The noodles turn to mush and the nuts get softish, even if you heat the leftovers in the oven rather than the microwave. For this reason I don't recommend making this recipe unless you know you'll eat it all.

A quick stir and you're done.

Chopstick Chicken

Serves 3

Ingredients

1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/4 cup water
3 oz. can crispy chow mein or rice noodles
2 chicken breasts halves, cooked and diced
1 cup celery (about 3 hearts)
1/4 cup chopped onion (about 1/3 onion)
1/2 cup cashews
dash pepper

Procedure

Combine soup and water. Add 1 cup of the noodles, chicken, celery, nuts, onion and pepper. Mix together and place in a round baking dish. Sprinkle remaining noodles on top and bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbling.

Time to pop this casserole in the oven!

Great Guacamole

Every avocado-loving family has their own
version of guacamole

Hiya Beaver!  We seem to be on a Tex-Mex kick here lately. No surprise considering how much you and I both love spicy food. Today I'm thinking about our family's great guacamole recipe, the one that was handed down to me by my mother. This one is different than most guacamole recipes in that it's meant to be a salad, not a dip. Years ago, in our family at least, guacamole salad was served on a salad plate atop a leaf of lettuce and you ate it with a fork. Here's the basic recipe Mom wrote down for me when you and I were newlyweds:

Mom's Great Guacamole

Cut avocados in half, scoop out and mash.  Add one or two spoonfuls of mayonnaise, chopped tomato, onion, celery (optional), a shake of Worcestershire sauce, dab of picante, and cumin to taste.

Now, if you're a novice, this doesn't give you very much to go on, does it? I wasn't much of a salad eater so I tweaked this basic recipe to make it more of a dip to be eaten with tortilla chips. It's been a big hit at parties and tailgates and I don't mind sharing my version. I can't call it Mom's any more since I took out the diced veggies and kicked up the picante.

Great Guacamole

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe avocados
2 - 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 - 3 tablespoons picante sauce
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4-5 drops Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon cumin
pinch salt or to taste
pinch pepper or to taste

Procedure

Cut the avocados in half; remove pits and discard all but one. Scoop the fruit out of the skins, dump it in a bowl, and mash lightly with a fork.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mash or stir until desired consistency. My guacamole comes out fairly smooth due to the mayo, but I make sure to leave a few lumps of avocado goodness. Finally, grab a chip and have a taste. The salt from the chips might be enough flavor enhancement but I usually end up adding salt in the end. Place the guacamole in an airtight container with the reserved pit on top of the mixture (keeps it from turning brown) and refrigerate a few hours before serving.


A dear friend of mine in Fort Wayne asked for this recipe back in 2005 and says she still makes it today, but her family likes a little bit more Tabasco. She writes, "Our favorite little Mexican restaurant does squeeze a lime in theirs when they make it so that might add a nice touch to yours."

The lime really does add a great flavor to guacamole. Good friend Harley makes a divine guacamole that calls for lime. It's the only sour cream-based guacamole I've tasted that I wholeheartedly approve of so I begged him to share it with me, and he did.

Harley's Great Guacamole

Ingredients

3 avocados
1 small tomato, cut into chunks
1 small, sweet onion, finely chopped
3 jalapeno peppers, sliced, seeded, chopped fine
1/2 garlic clove chopped fine
2 small limes, juiced
1/2 cup sour cream

Procedure

Peel the avocados and mash into a bowl.  Add all ingredients and mix well.  

Harley writes, "The sour cream is added last.  I add the amount of sour cream that gives the guacamole the consistency that I want.  Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less."

Finally, previous guest editor Oliver Axtell sent me his own version of Mom's recipe. Though not included in the list of ingredients, he has lime juice in the photo (top) so I assume he adds lime juice. Also, he substituted salad dressing (in the form of Miracle Whip) for the mayo. Oliver writes, "During my 88 years, I have eaten guacamole salad in Dallas, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Reynosa, Guadalajara and Mexico City. In none of those places have I found the guacamole salad any better than that made by this recipe. It is my wife's recipe and is so good that one would think she had Latino blood in her, but such is not the case."

Guacamole Salad serves two.

Great Guacamole Salad

Ingredients

3 large avocados, scooped out into a bowl and lightly mashed

1/2 tablespoon onion, finely chopped (approx. 1/4 onion)

2 tablespoons tomato, chopped (approx. 1/4 tomato)

2 tablespoons celery, finely chopped (approx. 2 stalks)

3 or 4 dashes Tabasco sauce

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons mayonnaise 

Procedure

Mix all ingredients.  Leave the mixture a bit lumpy.  Refrigerate.

Note:  To chop anything fine, you can't beat the Ulu knife, with its blade curved to fit the concave surface of the thick cutting board.  The Ulu has been used for centuries by the Alaskan Eskimos as an all-purpose cutting tool. -- Oliver

Ulu knife

To our readers: Is your guacamole similar to ours or very different?  We'd love to discuss guacamole with you!  Feel free to comment!