Jalapeno Poppers and Other Stuffed Chil Peppers - Get Your Copy Today

New Recipes!

Chili Pepper Cookbooks for the Holidays - WITH DISCOUNTS!

THE NEW CHILI PEPPER MADNESS SITE IS LIVE!

New Site Posts - Stop By and Comment!

Peach Sugar Rush Hot Sauce

We talk about making homemade hot sauces all the time. There are some amazing hot sauces on the market today. The industry is growing quickly, and that's a great thing for all of us. I like to keep a number of them on hand at home for recipes or for simply dashing over meals for extra flavor and heat. There is something about a homemade hot sauce, though. You'll get a nice blast of fresh chili pepper flavor and that bright heat of a spicy pepper. Sure, you can make hot sauces from mild peppers, but I like the "hot".

Pecan Encrusted Salmon with Rigatoni and Roasted Sweet Pepper Pesto

Salmon is common in our kitchen. We both love it and it's easy to pick up around here. Sometimes I wish we lived closer to the coast where we could find all sorts of fresh seafood, but alas, we do not. In the middle of the country, our seafood options are more limited. But salmon is one of those awesome options. I prepare it a number of ways, but today is an Italian version because my tiny little basil plant still had basil! It was really on its last leg, poor little thing, but it lasted quite a while. We froze some basil in oil for pesto through the winter, but this got us through a nice fresh batch.

Easy Huevos Rancheros

This is why we made the pico de gallo yesterday, so we could have ranch style eggs! Huevos Rancheros is another highly traditional Mexican dish. It literally translates to "Ranch Style Eggs". You'll find different versions of it depending on the region. This is a simple version with just the eggs and the pico de gallo. If you keep the pico de gallo on hand in the fridge, prepared ahead of time, this is one of the quickest recipes around. You only need to warm the tortillas, cook the eggs, then warm the salsa and boom! Done. Good to go.

Pico de Gallo

What can I say about Pico de Gallo? This is the epitome of Mexican salsa here. It literally translates to "Rooster's Beak", so if you hear someone talking about Rooster's Beak Salsa, you know you have Pico de Gallo. It's a simple blend of chopped and minced ingredients, and the name has come to refer to many different types or versions of Mexican salsa. Like guacamole, there are different ways to make it, but this one is fairly simple and just plain tasty. You can eat it right away after making it, but it gets better the longer you let it linger for the flavors to mingle.

Turkey Ancho Stew

These are the types of meals I like to make on a fairly regular basis. It doesn't take very long, is pretty easy to make, and incorporates a lot of healthy vegetables. And chili peppers! This stew makes excellent use of dehydrated peppers, which impart a lot of flavor to the dish. Ever cooked with dehydrated peppers? Be sure to rehydrate them first so you can blend them into the paste that will be incorporated into the mix. So good. Here's a helpful link - How to Rehydrate Dried Chili Peppers - though the instructions are listed below.

National French Toast Day - November 28

November 28th is National French Toast Day. Time to celebrate! If you've never had French Toast, it is very simply bread that has been soaked in an eggy mixture (usually egg and milk) then fried in butter or oil. The permutations expand from there but those are the basics. Interestingly, French Toast was not invented in France and is not particularly a French dish. It has been around since the Middle Ages and dates back to 4th century Rome in a cookbook attributed to Apicius. There it was called "Pan Dulcis" and it persists today.

Grilled Pork Chops Over Avocado-Potato Smash with Roasted Jalapeno Peppers

This meal was completely unplanned. It is another example of what you can make fairly quickly with ingredients found in the fridge and freezer. Admittedly, we keep a large selection of ingredients on hand - hey, I like to cook and eat! - but this one is not complicated at all. Pork chops grill up very nicely. You can sear them as well if you don't have a grill pan, or use your outdoor grill. Too cold here right now for that. I had picked up some chops last week from the local grocery store with the intention of cooking them that night, but then we got distracted or just weren't in the mood for pork chops. It happens. So into the freezer they went.

A Knife and Fork Panini

Sometimes, don't you just want to get down and dirty with your sandwich? Sometimes you can't help it. I actually do have the ability to make a neat sandwich that doesn't threaten to teeter over from all the ingredients, but more often that not, I go overboard and put too much on, Dagwood style. It's fun! And delicious. One way to overcome this is to serve it knife-and-fork style. That way, you won't need to pick up the sandwich with your hands. I mean, you CAN do that, but you might get a bit messy, which is in itself sort of fun.

Butternut Squash-Jalapeno Soup

I told you I was going to make soup with the leftovers! The other night we had a stay-at-home pasta making night and we made homemade raviolis filled with butternut squash, jalapeno and goat cheese. It was great, but we had some of the leftover jalapeno-squash puree. It tasted so good, I didn't want it to go to waste, and besides, who likes to waste food? This was actually very easy to whip together. I just added chicken broth and heated it up, then topped it with olive oil and parsely to serve. Here is the recipe from scratch, though, in case you didn't make the ravioli recipe first. I recommend making that one, though, and THEN this one. 

Seared Tuna Over Sauteed Spinach and Peppers

Tuna steaks! Funny story about these. Many years ago as I was still learning to cook, I tried to make tuna steaks for Patty in our tiny little kitchen and I botched the heck out of it. I WAY overcooked them. They were tough to eat. We're talking little bricks on the plate. I don't think I've ever been quite forgiven. Until now! When cooking tuna steaks, you really want to keep it simple. A simple sear over a hot grill pan and you're good to go. Patty likes hers a little more pink, while I like mine more rare. The difference in cooking time is only a minute per side. 2 minutes for me, 3 for her. Time will vary depending on the thickness of your steak cuts, so keep an eye on them. They continue to cook after you remove them from the heat, so be sure to let them rest a bit before serving.

Butternut Squash-Jalapeno Ravioli with Brown Butter and Sage

Last night we decided to have a homemade pasta night. What a great way to spend a Friday evening, hanging out in the kitchen with a few cocktails, making dinner from scratch. If you've never made pasta at home, you need to give it a try. A few years ago we purchased a simple pasta maker, which is nothing more than a roller with a hand crank, but it makes the process very easy. You'll find meals like this at your favorite Italian restaurant. This version is a bit spicier, of course, as I added in a roasted jalapeno pepper into the puree along with some chili powder. Not overly hot, but a good level of spice. If I were cooking for just myself, I might have included a couple roasted habanero peppers, or maybe a 7 pot, but this was for the both of us.

Check out more at our Chili Pepper Madness Blog.

Get Your Chili Pepper Gear

Feedback Welcomed

Please send us your feedback. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what other information you'd like us to include on the site, whether it be jalapeno pepper related information, products, or more.

CLICK HERE to Contact Us Today.

Help Jalapeno Madness Grow like a Jalapeno!

Feel free to forward our newsletter to your jalapeno loving friends! They can Join the Newsletter List and win a FREE Cookbook!

Also, don't forget to add us to your White List so we don't get filtered out of your system.