From the Farm Part 2: Jalapeños

Well, it's time for Part 2 of "From the Farm!" 

     Along with about 2 dozen apples and a dozen pears, we also became home to a little over a dozen jalapeños. While some of you wonderful readers may LOVE eating jalapeños all of the time, I couldn't quite imagine enough foods to eat jalapeños in before they went bad. 

     After a bit of research and formulation of ideas, I came up with a plan to at least preserve the jalapeños until it was time to make Fall/Winter chili. I will tell you about that first, but keep reading until the end, because there is also a quick and easy dip recipe at the end! 

You Will Need: (for preserving) 

* about 12 jalapeños

*1-2 teaspoons olive oil

*salt and pepper to taste

NOW- HERE IS YOUR WARNING!!!! When you work with jalapeños, I would highly advise wearing latex gloves (or any gloves for that matter). The minute you touch a lot of jalapeños with bare hands, your hands may react, but even worse will be when you accidentally touch your eyes or lick your fingers. WEAR GLOVES. 

     OK, now that that's over with, here we go. Begin by seeding your all of your jalapeños except for 1. Keep that one to the side until later. 

     Place the seeded and de-stemmed jalapeños in a pot of boiling water for about 10-15 minutes. It's crazy how even the steam from the boiling water caused some coughing effects! 

     The red peppers are jalapeños as well. That's what a mature and fully ripened jalapeño looks like! Now, from here I took all of the jalapeños and put them in my food processor. To that you'll want to add the olive oil, a tablespoon of the water the peppers were boiled in, and your salt and pepper for seasoning. 

     From here, I pulsed the food processor until I had a pretty decent puree. I didn't go too far, because the little flecks of red interspersed with the green looked lovely. 

     The puree was then transferred for my genius idea!! Wait for it..... ICE CUBE TRAY. Over the summer I read several magazines that had fun ideas of things to freeze in ice cube trays. Now, this comes with another warning. My suggestion would be to designate this tray for fun freezing adventures post jalapeños. Unless spicy water is something you're into... I am personally not EVER making regular ice cubs with this one again. 

    Voila! I have portioned amounts of jalapeño puree that can be pulled from the freezer and dropped into a crock pot of chili during the cold months! 

    Now comes the recipe you read to the end for! I cannot take credit for this recipe, but I can send a BIG thank you to my wonderful friend Becky for letting me watch while she made it! 

Ingredients: 

*2 blocks feta cheese

*3 seeded jalapeños (leave the seeds if you really like heat) 

*1-2 tablespoons olive oil

     The beauty in this dip is how easy it is. Plus who doesn't like spicy AND cheesy?!?! Dump all of the ingredients into a food processor and let it go until you have a creamy, pureed, slightly neon green dip. I swear I want to hug Becky an extra 3 times when she walks through the door with this dip. It works great with pita, or tortilla chips, or just your fingers. 

     Well, that's it for today's "From the Farm" edition. It's a wonderful Sunday night, there are Turkey burgers grilling, and I'm gearing up for another week with my classroom of goofballs. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, as I did, and relaxed! As always, if you attempt one of my adventures please let me know how it goes! Or feel free to ask questions! 

               <3